My Journey to Becoming a Google Certified Innovator: Serendipity in Chicago

Years ago, the  Google for Education Certified Innovator Program caught my eye. After completing the Level 1 and 2 training, the Certified Coach and Trainer programs -- I know that becoming an innovator would be the experience of a lifetime. With starting and raising a young family and the COVID-19 pandemic— I knew this program had to wait. I couldn’t leave my kids as infants and then pressing family health issues made me leery of traveling. at least not this year. Life has a way of throwing curveballs, and timing has always been a barrier. But when I discovered, serendipitously, that the 2024 cohort would meet in my hometown of Chicago on the day applications were due, I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity slip by. With furiously typing fingers, I penned my application, sharing what I have always been most passionate about as an educator - amplifying student voice. 

Why I Applied

The Google for Education Certified Innovator Program has always been a goal of mine. It’s more than just a professional development opportunity—it’s a platform for educators to transform classrooms and school communities. As I fervently finished my application, I realized that this program is more than just learning to innovate - it is about exploring challenges in the world of education and using creative problem-solving to advocate for students and the educators who serve them. This program would allow me to continue to research, reflect, and create solutions for a pressing issue in education - the silencing or marginalizing of student voice, especially in a post-COVID world. 

At a time when I felt like I had lost my own voice as an educator, I knew I needed to take this leap of faith and speak up for diverse and often marginalized voices within our school systems. I need to use my voice to amplify and champion the voices of others. With just 30 minutes to spare, I submitted my voice and shared my unwavering belief that our words are power. I could use them to advocate for others. 

I’ve always believed that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have as educators. It fosters empathy, empowers individuals, and fosters strong classroom communities. During COVID, when the Google Innovator program was postponed or moved online, I stopped pursuing it. So when I saw that this year’s cohort was meeting right here in Chicago, it felt like a sign.

The Experience of a Lifetime

The Innovator Academy brought together 50 of the most passionate and driven educators I’ve ever met. From the moment we walked into the space, the energy was electric. Every individual there was dedicated to tackling big challenges in education, and the collaboration, tenacity, and support we shared were unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Throughout the program, we dove deep into our projects. We were also challenged to think bigger. We were guided by some of the best leaders in educational technology, TED, and Future Design School, we were inspired to dream and imagine solutions. 

My Project: Amplifying Student Voice

My Innovator journey is centered around the essential question: How might we amplify and celebrate students' and educators' voices? My answer is what I tell students almost every day: Good speakers are good storytellers. 

My goals with this project are to increase student voice, promote empathy, and foster a strong community within any classroom setting. I will follow up with another blog post about the project. 

The Bigger Picture

Being a Google Certified Innovator isn’t just about launching a single project—it’s about driving transformation in education. My time in the program has shown me that real change happens when educators take risks, think big, and collaborate with others.

I hope this storytelling platform will empower students and educators to celebrate their unique contributions and use their voices to inspire change. I have been so grateful to have amazing mentors and teammates who are also passionate about and exploring this topic. 

Being a part of this program in the summer of 2024 was the reconnection and inspiration I needed in my career. I had a rough year prior personally and professionally that made me doubt myself and feel directionless - feelings that came from years of burnout, unpacking trauma, and diagnosis of complex PTSD caused by the pandemic and being pushed in directions by some well-meaning people that were not right for me. I had lost my sense of self. 

Advice for Aspiring Innovators

Currently, there are only about 3000 Google Innovators worldwide. If you’re considering applying to the Google Innovator Program, do it! Reach out to people online who have gone through the program and can give you advice/input on your project.

1. Just Apply: Don’t let self-doubt or timing hold you back. If I hadn’t applied at the last minute, I would’ve missed this incredible opportunity. I didn’t think I’d be selected among the hundreds (or even thousands) of applicants, but I was. I could not be more grateful for this opportunity and for every amazing person I have met because of it. 

2. Focus on your mission: Choose a problem you care deeply about. Consider where your heart always leads you as an educator. Your enthusiasm will shine and your curiosity will help you create a strong application. 

3. Embrace the Process: The academy is intense, but it’s also one of the most rewarding experiences. When I said that the room was electric, I truly meant it. The creativity, curiosity, and kindness expressed by every person helped me rediscover myself. 

The Google Certified Innovator Program has been a transformative experience, not just for my professional growth but for my journey as an educator. It’s given me the tools, mentorship, and community to bring and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me next. If you’re passionate about solving big problems in education, take the chance on this program. You won’t regret it.

Game On: Leveling Up The LMS

My children have been playing old-school N64 recently. Our upstairs office has a small TV my son uses to play video games while doing his CF lung treatments. The only purpose of this TV (which also has an attached VHS player) is to play Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, or the occasional multiplayer round of Golden Eye. He looks forward to his treatments and tries to recruit the whole family to join in on the "fun" of treatment time. Playing games with my children brings great nostalgia and joy to what could be a dreaded and mundane task. 

As I've relearned these games' controller functions and tricks, I've also started thinking about their design. I have been impressed with the intuitive nature of these games and the storytelling embedded with levels. The linear nature of these games is in stark contrast to more modern video games, with open worlds and quests to complete before entering the boss level (not unlike Zelda: Ocarina of Time - truly, a game ahead of its time). What amazes me about the design of these now-classic video games is how well my children receive them. Their graphics are outdated, and perhaps some of the skills needed to succeed in these realms are less complex than today's games. Mario Kart isn't terribly difficult to play, but the variables infused into the races keep my children on their toes. 

As I shoot my red shells at Wario, I find myself thinking about how we might provide our students with more intuitive learning management systems that genuinely world-build our curriculum for our students in an engaging manner. When designing our courses for students, it is essential to consider how we might draw our students into our content through the design of our LMS. As we set out to world-build our course, what do we need to consider:

Our LMS pages should be intuitive. 

What'd we do on Friday? This common question plagues our Mondays. When students return to school, they often claim to forget the previous day, and when students are absent, they might as well be Nintendo cartridges needing to be blown on and restarted. 

I use a weekly model in which students can find the date and access the agenda for the week. I break down the learning in my classroom into smaller chunks, which keeps students focused and allows them to look ahead (but not too far ahead that they feel overwhelmed). I began using this organization system during the pandemic and have stayed with it because it creates habits in students. The consistency is easy to follow and gives a rhythm to the course. All work for each week is due on Saturday at 11:59 PM (besides speeches and work that is presented in class). The consistent dates help students to plan ahead, self-pace to an extent, and understand what to access and when. 

Our LMSs should be aesthetically pleasing. 

When I started with Canvas, I was certainly overwhelmed by the possibilities. I needed structure. I needed to create a pathway for my students that allowed them to progress from week to week. Then I realized that my students wanted to click. The act of clicking on a website leads them to learning experiences. If I wanted them to click on important information, it had to be easy to find and access. 

I then fell in love with Canva. This platform made designing buttons and banners easy. Small touches to enhance my homepage, assignments, and resources have gone a long way to making my Canvas course lively and inviting. These buttons are an extension of my personality and teaching style, subtly communicating a message to my students and drawing them in even further. 

We need to tell a story with our LMSs. 

Whether our courses use technology a little or nearly every day, we must ensure that our course designs tell a story. What we craft should communicate clear messages about what is important, what needs to be done, and, most importantly, how students might continue to grow as learners. Our LMSs communicate what we are doing and where we are going and should also showcase what we value. Through careful design and using videos, audio, mindmaps, and other visuals, we can help our students access learning material. We can also challenge them to see the value and recognize how the information they are learning today can level up their experiences tomorrow. 

An LMS is an opportunity to draw our students into our world. These platforms can help students to navigate course content and also learn to tell their own stories. Through the careful design of an LMS, they can better understand who they are as students, what they know, and what they still need to learn. We must help them develop those metacognitive skills, and our course design can do just that. 

I have loved watching my own children take on the world of N64. Watching them and observing my students interacting with screens and platforms, I realize that strong design motivates them to beat the computer-automated Bowser across train tracks and also take on the learning experience. Let's all level up so our students can see just how fun it is to cross the finish line of learning. 

12 Days of Tech-Mas: Ending the Semester with a Little Tech Fun

The end of the calendar year is a great time to reflect, set goals, and wrap up any projects of the past. The end of the semester brings about finality and allows for time to celebrate great work while also looking to get new energy into a fresh semester. 

This semester, I wanted to consider what teachers needed to wrap up a semester while also helping them prepare for another transition into a new semester. To make bite-sized PD festive, I played on the 12-Days of Tech-Mas pun popularized by many instructional and technology coaches on the interwebs. 

For me, the focus is to promote fast, fun, and practical tips. From using Canva templates to reorganizing Gmail, this quick PD project also features tips I had previously shared with teachers. The frequency of communication and the timing of the message are both important factors when delivering that information. Ultimately, I hope teachers feel comfortable accessing support, have opportunities to explore new ideas, and feel comfortable communicating with students.

 

At the end of the semester, creativity is necessary!

We all feel a degree of burnout at the end of a busy semester. Tech tools can be a quick and festive way to infuse creativity without requiring extreme talent in the arts. Canva is one of my favorite tools that help make documents, presentations, and multimedia messages incredibly professional in a fast way. This resource is intuitive, offers thousands of templates to editing tools, and provides a free educator account that gives access to even more features! I love using this tool to enhance my LMS, and documents. I even love teaching students to use it, too. Another great tool for adding flair to assignments is Joy Pixels. This extension allows users to add emojis to emails, LMSs, and can even be used to organize resources and documents. I use this tool to create signature attention lines in my emails, which makes finding resources I share easier to identify, bookmark, and save. These two tools are amazing and tools that I use every day to make work more festive. 

Communication is critical as grades begin to finalize, too. 

Communication becomes vital when we are all cramming work and grading into the final few days of a semester. Leveraging one's LMS is the best way to keep communication efficient, direct, and clear. In Canvas, I love the "Message Students Who" feature that allows teachers to filter and send quick messages to students who need to turn in work, revise, or should be celebrated for great work. These filters are fast and make frequent communication easy. In my district's gradebook, Skyward, I can create automated messages to communicate with parents and students regarding grades and progress reports. These tools serve as documentation and reliable ways to inform every stakeholder.

I also love leveraging features in Gmail that allow me to organize my communication from priority inboxes to the snooze feature; I can sort and arrange for emails to appear when I need them. These organizational features also allow this communication tool to become a to-do list. 

Finally, technology can be used to plan ahead. 

Setting up for the next semester (or even just the first week back after a break) can ease minds during a two-week hiatus from school. The more prepared a teacher is, the less anxiety one might feel after returning from the holidays. For my district, setting up Canvas courses is a popular way to feel ready for a new year. Whether building out a course in an LMS, printing out lesson plans, or simply creating a to-do list, getting ready for a new year is a great excuse to close a Chromebook and enjoy some much-deserved rest and relaxation. 

Gee - I’d love to organize my Gmail Inbox: Tips for Prioritizing Your Inbox

When July hits, a sense of panic fills countless teachers. Back-to-school shopping and sales will begin. If you're not ready to dive into the 2021-2022 school year just yet, there are a few ways that you can organize your Gmail inbox to prioritize what you see and, more importantly, when you see it. Aside from "out of the office" automated responses, these Gmail tips and tricks are great for summer snoozes and even better organization in the fall. 

Snooze your mail.

Suppose you're not ready to read an email from an admin or don't want to read the tech updates for the fall, no worries! Snooze the email. Schedule the email to reappear when you're ready to read it. Summer is your time to recharge and relax. Everyone has a different process and approach. For me, I like to plan ahead. I work a little bit overtime in the mornings before my family wakes up, and then, after crossing something off my to-do list, I enjoy my days. Some people want to set aside a weekend later in the summer to prepare for the next school year. Whatever the process is for you - follow it. Snoozing your mail allows you to schedule and control your workflow in a manner that makes sense to you. 

Schedule reminders to yourself.

Speaking of pending tasks, scheduling reminders is a great way to create visual to-do lists or remind yourself to complete a time-sensitive task. Scheduled reminders allow us to focus on what is in front of us and not worry about essential actions that need to occur later. I love scheduling reminders about sending out my weekly staff email or scheduling a recurring form to appear at 6 AM when I first look at my email for the day. Other items that I schedule for myself are reminders about the start of the semester, grading periods, and other noteworthy activities that arise - like upcoming PDs and meetings. Scheduling tasks takes the worry or anxiety of forthcoming events off my plate until it is time to give it my attention.

Sort your mail by assigning labels.

I am a fan of folders - physical and digital. I like having critical information sorted into alphabetized, labeled, and color-coded. Putting every piece of information in its place brings me joy and my inner Marie Kondo. At the beginning of the year, especially, teacher inboxes are filled with critical emails from so many entities, with attachments that need to be referenced later—those emails matter. Shorting information into appropriate labels can make finding essential information like health notifications from the nurse, department emails, or committee notes quicker and easier. This sense of sorting reduces the visual clutter in one's inbox and clears the way for more pressing emails and pending tasks that need to be completed immediately. 

Star your inbox to further organize and prioritize your messages.

Starred is a label automatically built into Google. Starred emails have their filter, and they also serve as visual reminders. When using the desktop version of Gmail, users can set the color of the stars. Coding stars based on priority or classification can be helpful for some. I love using stars to indicate that an email contains information or necessitates a response before leaving for the day. Color also brings me joy. The star feature is a quick tool for me that I have found helpful. Again, play with the features provided by Gmail and use the tools that apply to your organizational style. 

Use the priority inbox features to group unread, starred, and other labels as needed. 

A dean wanted help organizing his inbox a few years back. So I began experimenting with the priority inbox feature to support his organizational needs and that this feature can really help anyone who frequently receives a specific type or group of emails. For example, a coach might want to create a label for the sport they coach or the activity they sponsor. Or a teacher might simply want to sort student emails into a separate category from department or administrative emails. To prioritize automated emails for referrals, we created a priority inbox that allowed referrals to appear in a section by itself at the top. Then, all unread emails appeared below. A final third section was designated for opened emails that he started to address later. This process helped him to visualize his workflow and feel organized based on the task he needed to accomplish. While I don't have a section for labeled emails, I do like using the stars. My priority inbox is starred, read, and unread emails. This visualization gives me purpose and becomes a visual to-do list during busy times of the school year. 

No matter how you choose to organize your Gmail and your digital life, don't hesitate to use the tools that are available to you to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the tools. Keeping yourself organized is empowering and can free up your mind to worry about what's happening in the real world AND can allow you to soak up the summer sun, too! We all need a break, and tech tools like Gmail can be leveraged to help ease your mind and snooze a little longer this summer. 

In the Room and on Zoom: How do we Find Balance?

A return to in-person learning is occurring across the Chicago suburbs. Hybrid learning is off and running, and so are teachers -- running from screen to the in-class scene. I liken hybrid learning to a game show, in which the players and the at-home audience are interconnected and leaning in to hear what the other group is saying. While it is nearly impossible to gracefully and fluidly do both perfectly, it’s working. Here are my takeaways after week two: 

Flip your doc camera so that they can see each other. 

I find owning the cheesiness of these awkward moments of juggling multiple devices and students in all places lightens the mood. When I laugh at myself, my students laugh with me. They understand that this is not how we are supposed be living life, but this situation is what we have. My roomers and Zoomers are broken into two groups (plus a full remote group) who do not get to see each other or interact with the other half of the alphabet. As a result, I like to flip the camera to make them do the exaggerated wave to one another. I have even encouraged one group to give another group advice or words of encouragement. The sound is jumbled and often makes the roomers jump, but they're laughing. Encourage students to remember that a whole other group of students concurrently learning allows everyone to feel heard and recognized. As I move the camera around, I am also giving subtle indications of where I want my Zoomers to be focusing their attention. Are we doing group work? If so, let's look at other students. Are we engaged in a direct instruction mini-lesson? Then I'm going to talk straight into that camera. While I am doing this, I do narrate the process and make all students fully aware of who is on the projector screen. Students know when they're being shown out of respect to all people involved. That open communication involves them even more and encourages everyone to take the stage when the camera is directed at them. 

Use technology to showcase every voice.

 

Students still struggle with unmuting on Zoom. Part of it is tech issues that can create a lag in the discussion, and another part of it is the uncertainty of being spotlighted without preparation. Whatever the reason, students need to be reminded that their voices matter and that they can share them in many ways. Using tech tools such as Pear Deck and Padlet has made amplifying student voice much easier and safer for students. They can respond at their own pace, and the messages can be anonymous. When students struggle to unmute, validation and encouragement can often temper their timidness. Highlighting anonymous responses on tech tools shows students that they have much to contribute and great ideas to share. After asking all students to write out answers, I have started using Flippity's random name picker to select the students who will share in the class on Zoom. Once I know everyone has written an answer, it is up to the Google gods to determine who will share their ideas. This process has also gotten students laughing, cheering, and groaning when a name appears on the screen. Every voice has something valuable to share. Sometimes students need a little nudge. 

Also, encourage students at home to report when the sound is off, or the internet is lagging. We won’t know that if they don’t speak up. I had to learn this lesson the hard way this week! 

Leverage in-person experiences. 

The best part of being in-person is that students can talk... to each other. They can be sharing what they are learning while a teacher directs their time to the students on Zoom. They can collaborate and share ideas, and if they get off-task, that is okay! In fact, that might be exactly what they need while they cope with or process the current state of the world. In-person time can be used to create a sense of normalcy and allow students to validate one another. 

Group students in the room and on Zoom.

 

One half of the alphabet should not be doomed to the fate of being passing ships who never interact again. No, no. They should be each other's partners in crime who advocate for one another when one is on Zoom. They can still create, communicate, and collaborate. They can meet in digital breakout rooms and on shared docs and slides. The organization, grouping, and movement of all it all just needs to be a little more coordinated than normal. I love using breakout slide templates to help the workflow and organization of digital collaboration. Using the same format reduces explanation time and increases student comfort when they are collaborating in a noisy, digital environment. Having that connection might flop if technology fails us, but it can be incredibly powerful, too. 

Make sure everyone is getting some love. 

The past year has been marked with trepidation and uncertainty. Content may not be perfectly covered this year, but students will continue to make academic and social-emotional progress if they feel safe, cared for, and validated. Whenever tragedy or hardship occurs, content matters less. Caring for others will allow students to cope and prepare them to learn. Leading with one's heart leads to stronger relationships, and stronger relationships will lead to more retention and learning. It is okay to focus on people first. The rest will follow. 

This game show host is tired after two weeks of hybrid, but I am grateful for the flexibility and energy that my students bring to the classroom -- both digital and in-person. While I hope that I can display some of Vanna White's grace and all of the wisdom of the late Alex Trebek, I know that if I give it my best and laugh at any tech trials that arise, my students and I will make class great together. 

Turning the Calendar: Focusing on What Students Learned in 2020

Turning the page on the calendar brings joy. It is a new year, and while the current state of the world will not automatically reset itself, we have strong reasons to hope that our classrooms will begin to feel "normal" by the fall of next year. While we slowly and cautiously return to a sense of normalcy, I am reminded of the lessons we learned in 2020. We were forced to make numerous changes during the 2020 calendar year, and those changes have come with growth and new insights that we might not have achieved without the necessary adaptations we made during the pandemic. 

Watching my kindergarten daughter reading on her iPad, I realize that while she has missed some of the milestones and strategies that she would have experienced if her school experience had been "normal," she has gained so much. As I watch my daughter navigate her device showing me how she can access her teachers' Bitmoji classrooms to find videos to teach her new skills like how to draw a reindeer, I realize that the common fear that students are "falling behind" is so far from what is happening. She's learned to use Seesaw to advocate for herself, use apps to search for resources, and is acquiring reading comprehension skills. I am amazed at the skills she has gained. 

As teachers, we have modified our practices, adopted new technology, and implemented instructional strategies. We have grown exponentially, and so have our students. While we reflect on how we've changed and what we may carry with us well into the future, we also need to reflect on how our students have changed. Their skills will also remain with them for the remainder of their educational experience and even into their daily lives. 

Students know how to navigate resources.

Many schools adopted new learning management systems or moved resources to an online platform that may not have used one before. Students have learned to access much more elaborate digital learning environments. They have learned to submit work, share, and connect online, which will be the necessary skills for countless students' future professional settings. They have acquired troubleshooting strategies and shortcuts to find keywords, resources, and lessons out of necessity. Despite the emails I have received (and I'm sure several educators have received, too) about not finding their work, students have learned to solve problems and learned to ask for help (or search for help online). I have also found that CC-ing parents on emails with walkthrough videos seem to magically fix the questions about not being able to find homework, too. 

Students have learned how to find the answers faster. 

In addition to navigating resources, students have learned to find answers faster. While there are far too many resources for students to find online that give them answers instead of teaching students to determine the answers themselves, they have learned to locate correct answers. These discernment skills can be refocused and capitalized upon when back in a more traditional classroom. As teachers, we will always need to help them discover how and why, but we do not need to teach them the "what". If students can locate answers faster, more time is available to explore the process, teach critical thinking, and reflect on what has been discovered. 

Students have learned to multitask. 

Much to teachers' chagrin, students have discovered that they can be chatting, watching YouTube, and "doing schoolwork" simultaneously. The number of ways that students have found to distract themselves is sometimes frustrating, but the implications of this skill are powerful. Productivity is powerful and can lead to more success in school and in the workforce. Despite distractions, students are learning to get work done or complete tasks. According to my exit surveys and discussions with students, they are also learning the painful lesson of procrastination. While students may not turn in their formative work or may have turned in too many assignments late last semester, they have gained a deeper understanding of budgeting time and how to work while simultaneously completing another task (or distraction). Students learn from failure and mistakes. We must remember that just because they may not have been the best students during a pandemic, that does not mean they didn't learn valuable life lessons. 

Students have learned to drive their learning. 

As the learning environment has become digital, students have been challenged to learn in ways that they might not have learned in a traditional classroom. Through the use of video and asynchronous activities, they have been tasked with learning new content independently. While teachers are still behind the lessons, not having a teacher sit next to them and walk them through every task has challenged students to acquire new skills independently. Watching videos, reading, or practicing skills on their own and in their own places has shown students that they can drive their learning. With more autonomy to choose the rate, place, and pace of academic growth, students have gained student skills that can help them in multiple settings. 

Students have learned to value education. 

Last year, we did not have a snow day. Students felt "jipped" that they didn't get an unscheduled day off. When March hit, everyone changed their tune about unanticipated days away from school. Teachers miss students in the classroom, and students realize that they miss school. Having experienced collective loss makes us appreciate what we had and what we will have again, once vaccinations and time to heal have been fully realized. Our mindset has shifted as we have learned how quickly things can be taken away. While I hope that we will never face a situation like this pandemic again, I sincerely appreciate how it has challenged us all to reflect and reassess our values. 

While I am saddened that my children are not in school right now and probably won't be for the rest of the school year because of underlying family health conditions, I realize how much they have gained - how much we have all achieved. I love my children, but I know that after ten months at home, I like them, too. We have learned to value our relationships, appreciate our experiences outside of the home, and realize the importance of learning anywhere. We have not lost or fallen behind as long as we take time to stop, reflect, and use the skills that we have gained moving forward. This pandemic has pushed us forward and provided opportunities that we would never have experienced otherwise.