Google Adsense College

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Product
Marketing Manager

Thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in the 1950s persuaded Congress to
recognize the importance of teachers with a celebratory day, today
is set aside in the U.S. to honor our educators and acknowledge the
contributions they make. I know that I speak for everyone at Google
when I say that none of us would be where we are today without our
teachers. On >National Teacher Day, we salute you, the
dedicated men and women who taught us much of what we know.

And we invite you to join us, too, at the next installment of the
>Google Teacher Academy at the Googleplex in
Mountain View, California on June 25th. Back by popular demand, the
GTA is an intensive one-day professional development event designed
to help K-12 teachers get immersed in innovative technologies.
Teachers near and far are invited to apply to spend the day with us
getting your hands on tools like Google Earth, Google Docs and the
entire Google Apps suite. Come, sit in classes, learn some new
stuff, and rub elbows with some of your most creative
contemporaries who, like you, are changing the world one student
and one classroom at a time.

Today, >Google for Educators is also pleased to
announce the launch of the new href="http://www.google.com/educators/geoeducation"
>Geo Education website, where you'll find
oodles of information about Google Earth, Maps, Sky and SketchUp.
In addition to spotlighting inspiring lessons from some pioneering
teachers, we are also sharing quick tips and ideas for easy ways
get started using geo tools in your classroom. Among other things,
you'll learn how to take flyover tours of peaks, valleys and
gorges, how to view constellations - even in the daytime - and how
to make a 3D model of your very own school.

And last but not least, awhile back, we asked teachers to share
stories about using Google Docs in the classroom. You href="http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html"
>told us about your students' collaborative
writing projects, about class presentations where kids were engaged
in dialog using the "chat" box throughout, and you
mentioned being able to be involved in the creative process early
on, instead of only seeing the final product. While we were
reading, we realized that Docs can be somewhat intimidating to the
uninitiated, so we created a href="http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcdn7mjg_72nh25vq" >getting
started document specifically educators — with tips for
signing up, logging in, and working your way through a document –
both in-class and outside.

So happy Teacher Day! We hope you have an enjoyable day during
which you get a hundred shiny apples and maybe even a hug from a
kid who knows how much you do every day. And we hope to see you at
the Googleplex in June, too.

href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?a=49Lt5H" > border="0" />

height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Cristin, Eleanor, Frodella, ManagerThanks, Marketing, Posted, product

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Product
Manager, Education Initiatives

Ever feel like your first idea isn't always your best idea, or
that brainstorming with a friend really helps to inspire you?
Similarly, when you're writing an essay or a short story, why
would your first draft be the best one — wouldn't you always
want to take advantage of input from your pals?

Revision writing is a critical piece of the writing process, and
more and more, teachers are using the concept of working with a
"writing buddy" to help make writing more fun and
collaborative, and to teach students the importance of having
support throughout the creative process.

href="http://www.google.com/educators" >Google for
Educators and the talented writers at style="font-style: italic;"
href="http://www.weeklyreader.com/" >Weekly
Reader have buddied up on a lesson about revision writing,
having worked with teachers all over the country to come up with
tips and checklists for incorporating buddy writing in the
classroom. Our online word processing tool, href="http://docs.google.com/" >Google Docs, helps students
create their first drafts, brainstorm with and inspire their peers,
all while keeping track of each and every comma change, word
replacement and new stroke of genius along the way.

Come href="http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.html" >check out
the lesson, grab a few hints on using Google Docs and introduce
your kids to buddy writing. We suspect their collaborations will
get your creative juices flowing, too. height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Cristin, Education, Frodella, InitiativesEver, manager, Posted, product

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Manager,
K-12 Education Programs

Yesterday we hosted our third href="http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html" >Google Teacher
Academy, this time in sunny Santa Monica. More than 50
innovative K-12 educators from across Southern California joined us
to share and learn new methods of incorporating online tools and
collaborative techniques into their classroom experiences.
Elementary, middle, and high school teachers spent time hearing
from experts and one another about subjects like lesson-plan
development, group projects, and on-demand publishing using Google
and non-Google tools. Carol Anne McGuire, who teaches blind and
visually impaired students in Orange Unified School District,
delivered the keynote along with some of her students. She brought
to life "Rock Our
World," an international project in which kids across
continents work together online to make movies, tell stories, and
compose music.

After previous Google Teacher Academies in our Mountain View and
New York City offices, we consider ourselves fortunate to have a
cadre of 150 Google Certified Teachers nationwide. These
"graduates" continue to inspire their students: for
instance, Jerome Burg created href="http://www.googlelittrips.org/"
>GoogleLitTrips, a way to journey along some of
literature's most classic roadtrips via Google Earth, and
Cheryl Davis engages her students in the presidential election and
local history through podcasts such as " href="http://gctgone.googlepages.com/home2"
>Candidate Watch" and "

href="http://gctgone.googlepages.com/home2222" >Postcards from the
Past."

We started this href="http://www.google.com/educators" >education program last
October to support teachers, empower students and expand the
frontiers of human knowledge. To say we're inspired by what
we've seen is an understatement.

Tags: , Cristin, Education, Frodella, hosted, manager, Posted, ProgramsYesterday