In 1989, when JamieSue Goodman was a high school freshman in Manning, South Carolina — population 4,000 — her journalism teacher got a grant to buy a computer. The idea was to use it to lay out the school paper. But desktop publishing was new, and the teacher didn’t have a technical background. And so the whole experience turned into an adventure in discovering the machine’s capabilities.

“I had to learn how to use the computer alongside my teacher, everybody struggling together,” Goodman remembers. “And I loved it.”

Fast-forward to 2019. Schools are full of computers, be they Macs, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, or iPads. However, a modern version of the situation Goodman encountered 30 years ago persists. Even gifted teachers aren’t necessarily prepared to guide students through using technology to accomplish real-world tasks.

And JamieSue Goodman is in a position to help. As project lead for Applied Digital Skills at Google, she spearheads an ambitious program to provide educators with a rich set of video-based instructional materials that they can access for free. “Basically, every job out there requires some basic computer skills,” she says. “And we want to make sure that everybody has what they need to succeed.”

http://tellmystory.com.ng/story/meet-the-woman-bringing-googles-applied-digital-skills-initiative-to-50000-teachers--and-its-free-di