Another Round of Apple Teacher - "Oh! This is what I want to know."

Last year I was approached to help teachers learn how to use their new Macbooks. I had led some teachers through the Apple Teacher program at my previous school and it was pretty successful, so I thought trying it again here would be a good idea.

Last year did not work out, so we tried again this year. With the interested teachers signed up and all the surveys sent, we had our meeting day. Then, three teachers showed up. Well, two is better than none.

Here are a few reflections from trying Apple Teacher at this school.

These are not the Tech Ambassadors

At my last school, the Tech Ambassadors were teachers who were selected to join the program based on what division in the school they taught in and their tech skills. I based my prediction that they would finish this training in an hour on that last cohort.


Get Your Apple ID!

If teachers have their IDs on hand (with passwords) things will go smoother. Unfortunately, not all did. No problem, if you do not remember your ID, you can "easily" create a new one.


Taiwan is not an Apple Teacher Country

Just be careful if you are in Taiwan. I am sure there are other countries, but one teacher is from Taiwan so put that as her home. Apple does not recognize Taiwan in the application form so she ran into problems signing up.


"Oh my gosh. Look at this!"

It was great to hear and see teachers learning how to use their hardware and software better. One reason I told them to take the course is to learn how to better integrate the Apple products into their teaching. Or if not Apple - do something similar with Google or Microsoft, etc. Use online courses as a way to learn new ways of teaching (or find what you don't like in them).


Time and Space

I think the best reason to get teachers together is to give them time and space to work on what they are interested in. Like one teacher said, "If I could come into your room during lunch, I would work on this."

OK, you are welcome anytime.

Bringing Apple Teacher to KAS

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Feb 13, 2017 at 11:36pm PST

When I heard about the Apple Teacher program, I was interested and went to apply. Unfortunately, my Apple ID is registered in Japan, and Japan was not one of the countries where the program was available. So, I decided to make a new Apple ID and I took the Apple Teacher Certification.

I have gone through several tech certifications and after each one, I kept thinking how much better each would be if teachers got together and went through the certification together. I am not talking about the test, but rather the training that most certifications have to study for the test. I could see that some interesting conversations could come out of sharing experiences with each other.

We tried this at KAS with the Tech Ambassadors this year and it was awesome. One takeaway I had was to use Keynote's Instant Alpha for greenscreen images.

Apple's Planning Guide

Tech Educator Programs

Certifications can show that you are willing to go further to learn and develop as a teacher. Certifications for a type of technology can show that you are proficient or at least a working knowledge of the software.

Here are three certifications you might want to try.

Apple Distinguished Educator

This was one of the first certification programs and is one of the most difficult to achieve. To become an ADE, you need to demonstrate you integrate Apple products in innovative ways through a 2-minute video. They give some advice for how to do this, but planning early is important.

Apple Teacher

Apple Teacher is the ADE's little brother. There are two types of certification - Mac and iPad. Each has a total of nine (could be 10 as they are adding more) and each program has five questions that require you to read a scenario about a project using and determine how to solve it by dragging in answers or selecting from a few choices. The tests are free, so there is no reason not to try.

While not available in every country, you can create a new account (with any email address) in a country where it is offered.

Google Certification

Google Certification has a few different levels beginning with the Google Certified Educator Level 1.

From there you can try the Level 2 test. The first two are requirements for the next level of Trainer and Innovator.

The Level 1 test is $10 USD and is scenario-based. It takes about an hour to complete. Google supplies study materials and there are Google Plus groups with people discussing how to study for it.


Others of Note

Many tech apps or programs offer some sort of certification, two I highly recommend are the Book Creator Ambassador program and Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship program.

Going through certification can not only show you know how to use the product but also shows a dedication to learning and maintaining a level of proficiency, so go out, get certified, and share your knowledge.

cross posted to tekiota.com