The Google Teacher Academy is a great professional development experience
for teachers, and this year it's at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.
You've heard about the Googleplex, haven't you? Free food at a variety of
restaurants, gym and volleyball court, bikes and scooters available to get
around from building to building. So here's your chance to check it out
for yourself, and learn a few things at the same time.

Last year, we at OTAN encouraged Google to include adult education in
their definition of educators, and they accepted one of our ESL teachers,
Susan Gaer, into the Google Teacher Academy. She had a great time, and is
still connected to the group that she worked with. This year, they are
opening up applications to teachers from anywhere. The event is free, but
you would have to pay your own travel. Here is the information, along with
a couple of other items from the Google Educators newsletter.

Marian Thacher
OTAN
www.otan.us

...we'd like to invite you to come celebrate and learn with us at the next
Google Teacher Academy, scheduled to take place at the Googleplex in
Mountain View on June 25th, 2008.  The Google Teacher Academy is a FREE
professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get
the most from innovative technologies. Each GTA is an intensive, one-day
event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free
products and other technologies, learn about interesting and new
instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and
immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon
completion, GTA participants become Google Certified Teachers, who share
what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region.  This
time around, we've listened to your feedback and opened up the application
to all teachers everywhere.  As long as you are willing and able to get
yourself to the Googleplex, we'd love to have you.  For more information
about the GTA, please check out our full information and requirements
page:  [ http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html
]http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html

The team of people thinking more about teachers everyday is growing here
at Google.  As such, we're introducing a new section of the Google for
Educators site - dedicated to using our popular Geo Products.  Here you
will find information about using Google Earth, Maps, Sky, and SketchUp in
your K-12 classroom.  Along with some of the great classroom activities
we've collected over the years, we've also included starter kits which
feature "cool and easy things you can do" with each product in your
classroom.  Check it out here:  [ http://www.google.com/educators/geo.html
]http://www.google.com/educators/geo.html

Lastly, but never leastly, a few months back, we asked you to share
stories about using Google Docs with your students.  You told us about the
power of introducing collaborative writing to your kids, you mentioned
using our presentation software in class, keeping students engaged with
the "chat" feature, and you told us how much you like to be able to drive
success throughout the writing process, instead of just grading the final
product. [ http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html
]http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html
While we were reviewing your stories, we realized that Docs may be a bit
intimidating to the uninitiated so we developed a "getting started" guide
- with step-by-step instructions for creating accounts, sharing and
collaborating, editing and organizing your work.  Now there's no reason to
be scared, so give Google Docs a try:  [
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcdn7mjg_72nh25vq
]http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcdn7mjg_72nh25vq

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