Chris Betcher

One of the things that my American friends are always very proud of is that they claim to live in a country where dreams can come true and where everyone has an equal opportunity of success. They call it “ The American Dream ” and all over America young children are told that anyone - even them - has the opportunity to grow up and become president one day. Of course, if you’re a young American, the reality is that while anyone can potentially become president, the probability of it actually happening to you is somewhere around 1 in 307,006,550 (which is roughly the number of people living in the USA at the moment). So while you possibly could become president, it’s far, far, far more likely that you won’t be! If you did happen to somehow end up as the President of the United States, the odds get even more staggeringly unlikely that your son or daughter will also become president. Mathematically, the chances of two people from the same family both becoming President of the USA are ...

Ok, I'm a bit greedy I know... I applied for both the Sydney Google Teacher Academy and the Australian Apple Distinguished Educator Program. It would have been nice to be part of both. I was thrilled to bits to find out that I got into the GTA program last week, and then was full of anticipation to hear back about the ADE program this week. Unfortunately, I missed out on getting into the 2011 ADE Program. I mean, I know it's really competitive and all, and I'm not for one moment trying to take anything away from those that got into it - my hearty congratulations go out to all of you who made it, including friends like Helen Otway and Allanah King. They are absolutely deserving of their place in the program. Well done to you both, and to everyone else who was accepted. But I'll be honest with you... I was quite frankly a little surprised when I read the email. As brash as it might sound to say so, I thought I had a pretty reasonable chance of being accepted into the ADE ...

A few weeks ago I posted my application video for the Sydney Google Teacher Academy . According to their schedule, I wasn't expecting to hear anything back about it until late next week, so I was very excited yesterday when I checked my email and found this waiting for me... You have been selected to participate in the Google Teacher Academy - Sydney. After reviewing your application, we believe that you have the experience and passion necessary to positively impact education in your region, and we are excited to have you join us on Wednesday 20 April 2011 at the Google office in Sydney. Woohoo! I'm aware that it's a pretty hotly contested thing to get into, so I'm feeling very fortunate to have been accepted. Of course, as well as spending time at Google 's fantastic new Sydney offices and getting hands-on and in-depth with all the cool tools that Google offers for education , the other best part is in the networking and the conversations that I know will take pla...