Photo by Allie on Unsplash

So what do you do when you are semi-retired and get to take two months off from your Master of Educational Technology programme? Well, the plan was to lead a couple of workshops outside of the country and help supervise International Baccalaureate (IB) exams at my old school, but the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that! So instead, I am learning about G Suite for Education and am taking a course to become an online workshop facilitator for IB. I am also just finishing a course to improve my understanding of indigenous perspectives and, although it was mostly lecture style, it was interesting. Last week, I passed my Google Certified Educator Level 1 Exam, this week I passed my assessment for suitability to be a Google Trainer, and later this week I will take my Google Certified Educator Level 2 Exam – wish me luck!

Part of getting certified as a Google Trainer requires evidence of training at least five people or groups in GSuite over the last year. Well, all my school evidence disappeared with my access to my school account and all my IB evidence has proprietary information that I am unable to share. I decided to contact the Heads of Department at my school, looking for guinea pigs willing teachers who needed some help. Originally, I was just going to contact individual teachers, but I thought that might be imposing as they would feel obligated to get involved and they are already coping with many emails and courses being delivered totally online. Instead, I asked Department Heads to pass on the message so no one would feel obligated. Yes, they have a tech department for support at school, but there is SO much to do with a Grade 6-12 school offering their FULL program online, that I expect there will be holes that can be filled. Within 24 hours, I had three people with questions. Perfect! I can learn more about the GSuite, learn more about current online apps for my Master’s project and help out people I care about. Not all of the questions so far will be suitable as evidence for my Google Trainer examples, but that doesn’t matter. I am learning and hopefully easing the stress on some of the teachers who need support amid this emergency pivot to online education.