"Welcome to Christmas Morning..."

Standing Outside the Google Kirkland Offices.

Those were the first words I heard after being formally escorted into a meeting room at the Google offices in Kirkland, Washington at the first ever YouTube Teacher Studio. Displayed at each of the 15 chairs surrounding the table was a YouTube Flip HD video camera, a GorillaPod and a Bamboo tablet. 

YouTube Swag

Throughout this amazing day, our small class of 15 educators from around the world were treated to a several top-notch presentations and workshops. The first session was with history teacher James Sanders. He discussed various ways to incorporate YouTube effectively into a classroom and gave us lots of ideas regarding YouTube playlists, searching techniques and video quizzes.

The next session was with high school chemistry teacher and adjunct professor of education from the University of San Francisco, Ramsey Musallam.  His expertise is in screencasting and the power of capturing direct instruction using an approach known as flip teaching. Ramsey demonstrated how to make screencasts and showed us examples of how he incorporates them into his curriculum. Later we got some hands on experience using our new Bamboo tablets, a product I had not ever tried before, and also practiced screencasting. I really enjoyed the Bamboo tablet and need to practice with it before school starts. It will be an innovative addition to my classroom!

The best presentation of the day (in my opinion) was given by the inspirational and engaging Jim Sill, a TV and movie industry veteran who now works as a high school video production teacher. He exposed us the basics of video production and engaged us in a fascinating discussion about effective videos and digital storytelling. He showed us examples of good and bad videos and discussed their different components. Later we practiced by making and analyzing short videos using our brand new Flip Cams. 

The YouTube Teacher Studio was an incredible experience and it was nice to get a chance to discuss with like-minded educators how we are already using video in our classrooms and brainstorm effective ways we could potentially incorporate YouTube. 
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After this intensive day (plus some follow up a few days later and several things I can't disclose due to the NDA) I am thrilled to be able to call myself by the official title, "YouTube Star Teacher" - one of only fifteen worldwide at this point!