Tag Archives: GoogleCertifiedCoach

Tips for Google Level 1&2 Exam -No Practical Questions!

If you have previously done some Google for Educator training, but just never got around to taking the test…. do it now! If you “trained” before September 2021 in particular, you will still be adequately prepared to take the test with only minimal review – that’s how much easier it now is.

The Google Certified Educator Level 1 and 2 exams drastically changed on September 1, 2021 – the scenario based questions were removed and the exam now consists of 35 multiple choice/drag and drop questions. These are the most recent materials (Fall 2022) supplied to Google Trainers by Google for Education to in turn share with those who wish to achieve their “Google Educator” certification.

Why you should take one of these exams NOW!

  • The Level 1 and 2 Exams, without the previous hands-on practical section, are considerably more simple.
    • In my estimation, if the previous version of the Level 1 and 2 exams were a 5/5 for rigor, I would now rate them a 2/5 for comparative rigor. Note that this is a fully unofficial, personal gauge.
  • You still have 3 hours to take the exam. Previously, many candidates used most of that time. Since the new exam format, I do not know of anyone who has taken more than an hour to complete the exam.
  • The Google for Education “Teacher Center” website offers free and effective training courses for both the Fundamental (Level 1) and Advanced (Level 2) courses. This is a great way to do the training, or a refresher, at your own time and own pace.
    • The quizzes at the end of each module offer VERY effective preparation for the exams.

Some skills to review

Book study via Voxer: mid-way musings

We are into week 4 of our #ECOpenChat Book study featuring the book The Edtech Coaching Primer by Dr. Ashley McBride. This is a book study gathering with Google Certified Coaches.

As I have hosted so many different book study formats, I’m compelled to do “action research” on each new platform that I am book-studying with. Each platform from Flipgrid to Padlet, to Slides, to Google Meet and beyond, seems to have its strengths and challenges. Check out my initial Voxer book study musing from a few weeks ago here.

By week four, of the over fifty people who have joined the Voxer #ECOpenChat book study chat space, there are only about a dozen who have actively commented in the past ten days. Week one participation was higher but has dropped off quickly as we approach week four.

This percentage of active involvement is pretty typical for book studies with folks we don’t really know, as we often sign up with the best of intentions, and then life happens. I know that for myself, the first book study that I signed up for with this group was one that I only really participated in for a single week, as I was waiting and waiting for my book to arrive. That was a Google Meet-based study, and the week I did finally join, I felt a little out of place.

So far, this Voxer study feels a lot more anonymous. Even though our names are beside each post, and people can even hear the expression in our recorded comments, it would seem that it would be easy to pop a comment into the stream, as it is hard to keep track of who has even been posting.

What I am finding interesting is how folks are engaging – or not – with different kinds of content. When you post your own content, you get some “engagement” stats, so to test this, I recorded a post using the audio feature, and then right below it, I added some text comments.

  • For the text comment, I imagine that it “counts” a view any time that someone scrolls by slowly enough to read it
  • For the audio comments, it counts when someone actually clicks the “play” button on your comment
  • The result of my highly unscientific action research?
    • For the number of people who scroll by and read a typed comment, a quarter to a half press the play button to listen to a comment
  • You can see the number of ❤️ for a text or audio comment posted by anyone

A Voxer book study makes it easy to just lurk and read through the comments without ever feeling like you have to jump in and engage. Maybe this is a safe starting place for those who are new to the #ECOpenChat group

I still am finding the Voxer timeline to be a bit challenging to get a “conversation” going about any specific post. As Voxer doesn’t have any type of “thread” feature, when you listen to a post and want to respond to the post’s author, your response might be after five or six other posts in between. A few folks have thought to use the @symbol – like in Google Docs comment – to respond to a post; this works nicely for a text response, but not so great for an audio comment. But maybe this? (see Voxer Tip image)

I’ll add this “Voxer Tip” to our study and see if it makes a difference! I am the official “moderator” and question-poser for week four of our study so this is the week that it makes the most sense for me to throw in a tip.

#ECOpenChat book study comrades…. if you are reading this, I’d love to hear your reactions to my reactions in the comments below!

Submit: Google Certified Coach Application

Although I was indeed disappointed in July when I received news that my application for #GoogleCertifiedInnovator in the #VIA20 cohort was not successful, I was not surprised or too dismayed, as it seems that many eventual #GEInnovators are not chosen from their first application attempt.

It was in spring that I also started to become more aware of the new Google Certified Coach program. This program did pique my interest as it seemed I would be a fitting candidate, having spent the past 3 or so years of my teaching career as an Instructional Coach. So, fresh off of the “not yet” Innovator Application, I started working on the 20+ hours of coaching curriculum and started to think more specifically about framing my coaching work in the 5 steps of the Coaching Model.

There were lots of great opportunities for chats with other hopeful and existing coaches such as through @ECOpenChat and

As it turns out, the experiences of the COVID spring have been good for coaching in my district for a variety of reasons:

  • Teachers are now willing to meet virtually using Google Meet for various stages of the coaching process. Of course, this simplifies scheduling and reduces travel immensely in a geographically huge school district like mine. I also think it moves the process along more quickly as teachers will “squeeze in” a Google Meet check-in or follow-up in a way that wouldn’t be practical if we were relying on in-person meetings.
  • Our teachers started out the fall teaching “in-person”, but many were open to coaching as they wanted to be better prepared to have tools and procedures in place for the likely eventuality of going back to some for of virtual or remote teaching (which has indeed since happened).
  • Many teachers got “hooked” on little bite sized PD offerings in the Tech In 20 minutes series that I offered through COVID. Many coaching leads have come from teachers interested in further pursuing these tools and techniques

Although I didn’t quite get all of my application parts together for the my self-imposed November 30th target date, I am pleased that it is still 2020 and I have indeed pressed “Submit” to become a Google Certified Coach. Now the waiting begins!