Well…I’ve learnt something from applying for the Google Teacher Academy, make sure you give yourself enough time to reach a deadline. The deadline was a few hours ago and I left my video and application form until last night.

Why? Well a mixture of being busy, enjoying TeachMeet Blackpool and doubting whether I’d even get it meant that I kept putting it off. But then the thought of regret sets in. If I don’t go for it, I’ll definitely not get it. You’ve got to throw your hat in the ring to be considered.

So what is the Google Teacher Academy? It’s a chance to make a change and be one of only 50 teachers in EUROPE that are given the tools to help others be creative and collaborative. Tom Barrett has been campaigning about this for ages.

So the task was to fill out an application form and create a 1minute video, stating bits about your history, how you help develop others and talking about obstacles that you have managed to overcome. It was hard filling this out, I’m coming to the end of two years training hundreds of teachers and will soon be back in the classroom fulltime. So my application contains a mixture of both jobs, I’ve certainly learnt an enormous amount training teachers, but I can’t wait to get back into the classroom.

Technically, I thought the video would be straightforward. I though Animoto was the answer. I signed in with the intention of uploading screenshots of various bits of tech and then commentating over them. Then I found out my education account hasn’t been renewed, so my videos were limited to 30 (nearer 24) seconds in length. So I made 3.

This is when I learnt that you can’t download 30-second videos, but you can export them to Youtube. Maybe if I export them all to Youtube, I can splice them together to make one video? Genius. Youtube downloads as MP4, Movie Maker doesn’t like MP4. Zamzar came to the rescue, letting me convert the videos into AVI/WMV. So I chucked them into Movie Maker, edited the Animoto credit out of video 1 and 2 (leaving it on video 3 at the end, having it appear 3times would’ve looked a bit odd) and tried saving. Save failed. Try again. Failed. Oops. After a lot of messing about, still no luck and it’s 11:45pm.

Luckily Google came to the resuce, (irony maybe?) and I found an MP4 editor instead and just edited the original MP4s together. Finally finished and all uploaded just after midnight. A 45minute job taking 4 hours.

So, the video is not the best it could be. I should’ve checked my Animoto account before trying it, but hey, in my opinion it’s better than some of the others I’ve seen so that’s got to be a good thing! Will I get invited to the Academy? Who knows, but at least I’ve given it a shot.

Remember, if you never try, you will never succeed.