Team of IT Instructors and ICTC staff attended the Google for education Summit 2014 last November 19-20, 2014 at the Blue Leaf Filipinas, Manila. The event organized by the famous company gathers hundreds of educators, together with students and IT enthusiasts from in and out of the country. The objective is to bring together all stakeholders of the Philippine education community to digitize and bring forward the education industry.

The 2-day event opened with a talk from Mr. Ken Lingan of Google Philippines. Mr. Conrado Rotor of Philippine Science High School, then discussed “How technology fits in education” and the different strategies to integrate technology in curriculum. Backing that up is Miss Aileen Apolo of Google Asia Pacific, sharing stories of how Google helped improve education in their selected schools. Gracing the event and delivering the most important talk of the opening day is DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro. The secretary talked about the current status of Philippine education and the coming implementation of K-12 system.

The second day is designed for students, IT staff, educators and students. The more technical part of the summit covers the “Google for Education Platforms” handled by the Google Program Manager himself, Mr. Jerome Locson. Then Teacher Celine Barosco, Mr. Ryan Raz shared their best practices using different Google Applications. Technical-wise, Mr. Devan Mitche of Google Singapore then discussed the bandwidth requirements and possible solutions for implementing Google for Education System. The Final day was highlighted by a walkthrough and hands-on on Google platform and its application.

Google Student Ambassador (GSA) , a group of Google scholars technically skilled in google platform, presented the different applications that can be beneficial to students. On the other hand, Google Educator Groups (GEGs), a community of educators who learn, share, and inspire each other to meet the needs of their students through technology solutions, presented the applications that will be beneficial to educators.

The participants were also able to learn Google Apps Scripting before finally ending with inspirational remarks from Google Philippines representative.

Representing Aurora State College of Technology are Ms. Mayreen Amazona, Mr. Sherwin Glorioso, Mr.Jorell Mababangloob, Mr. Von Gerald Macose, Mr. Mike Robles, Miss Cristelita Panlilio and Ms. Rhengie Lyn Sebastian.

So what will be the next step for the College “Always one Step Ahead Towards Aurora’s Development”?, Go GOOGLE!