Tech-savvy teacher Lisa Highfill’s knack for using the Internet and computers in the classroom helped land her a spot at the Google Teacher Academy later this month.

Highfill, a fifth grade teacher at Fairlands Elementary School, was selected from educators who applied from across the globe to attend the one-day intensive training sessions put on by Google and the non-profit Computer-Using Educators in Seattle on July 28. 

“I will be one of 50 teachers from around the world and I’ll become a Google-certified teacher to do staff training and development on how to teach this,” Highfill said.

School districts in Palo Alto and Los Altos have asked her to share what she learns with their teachers, Highfill said.

Highfill is also going to a YouTube Academy the day before and plans to attend an optional second day of the Google Teacher Academy, where attendees share ideas and learn from each other.

“It is really intense training. They leave with their heads spinning and smoke coming out their ears,” said Mark Wagner, professional development coordinator with Computers-Using Educators, or CUE.

Getting accepted to the Google Academy is no easy task either, Wagner said. Applicants have to submit a one-minute video about themselves as part of the process and make an impression.

Highfill will attend sessions ranging from five minutes to half an hour for 12 hours at the Google academy to learn how to use Google computer applications in the classroom.

“I think this whole thing is put under the umbrella of 21^st century learning," she said.

It’s not enough to just get (students) prepared for tests, we need to do more than that,” Highfill said.

Highfill credits her recent experience of having her students design a website about the Pigeon Point Lighthouse State Park and invasive plant species with helping her get into Google’s academy. The site won the Best Use of California State Parks Content category at this year’s California Student Media Festival.

The site features video and information about the state park, which is a destination for Fairlands’ fifth-graders annual three-day camp. It also includes information about invasive plant species. Click here to visit the website.

“Kids with technology are amazing," Highfill said about the site. "This was the kind of homework they wanted to do."

“It was really a neat use of interactive technology and the web,” Jamie Annuzio, Associate Director of the California Student Media Fesetival said.

Students liked it too.

“It was really fun,” Saloni Wasnik, 11, said about working on the site.

“I never knew so much about technology. It seemed a little confusing at first.”

Wasnik made a PowerPoint presentation about elephant seals and a movie about invasive plants for the site. The class worked on the site every day, she said.

“We all like computers and playing games, but when we learn there are so many things you can do (with computers), it’s so much fun. We found it was more fun that actual computer games,” Saloni said about making the site.

“My older daughter is 18 and she didn’t get a chance to learn all this technology,” said Saloni’s mother, Surekha Wasnik. “I think it is really good. (The award) was exciting.”

Kapil Raman, 11, who Highfill described as a promising writer, director and producer, created an Indiana Jones-themed movie found on the site’s final projects page.

Both students said learning in a hands-on way, like building a website, is more exciting than reading a textbook or studying for a test.

“It was like expressing yourself and saying what you wanted to say,” Kapil said about making the site.

“I learned how to work with other people on a project. I learned much more about technology.”