Hughson School District has taken a brave step forward in technology becoming one of the first schools in the Nation to try to get its students Googled Certified. Google Certification is a certificate that will allow students to show future teachers, employers, or professionals that they are proficient in using all of Google’s platforms.  Google currently has applications such as Google Docs, Google Sheets (a spreadsheet program), Gmail, Google Slides, Google Drive, Hangouts and other various Google tools.

Students were tested on their knowledge of maneuvering through these applications and they were tested on their expertise. The test was held November 14th and 15th and took about two hours to complete.

Google used Hughson High school as a pilot school for the student certification program and after waiting about a month to receive notification back on who passed the test, Hughson Unified School learned that sixteen students, twelve students from Hughson High School and  four from Emilie J. Ross Junior High will be some of the first Google Certified students in the world.

For those sixteen students who passed this a very difficult test, they now have a certificate that does not expire until  November 16, 2020. Students who were unable to pass the test can opt to try again but must wait fourteen days between testing attempts.

“I felt excited that I was one of 12 to pass the test,” said Dustin Timmermeryer, senior, “I thought that the test on Google Sheets was hard because the majority of the test was on that and was on formatting so I wasn’t sure if I had passed at first.”

The certificate that students received for passing the exam can be put onto resumes and college and career applications. As a second reward for passing, students were also given a choice for a GCloud Certified water bottle or a Google hat.