Recently, there’s been a surge online around the free opportunity to take the Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam. This was originally an international certification that required a USD 10 registration fee, but it’s now open for free applications, naturally attracting many people to give it a try. I initially thought, I’m already quite familiar with Google tools—shouldn’t be a problem, right? So I joined this wave of learning.
But this journey turned out to be far more than just “passing an exam.
What Is a Google Certified Educator? Level 1 vs. Level 2
The Google Certified Educator certification is primarily designed for educators such as school teachers, vocational instructors, and professional certification trainers, helping them effectively integrate a wide range of Google cloud-based tools into their teaching. Level 1 focuses on foundational knowledge and basic operations, while Level 2 emphasizes advanced applications and real-world integration. The more advanced Google for Education Certified Trainer is intended for educators aiming to take on leadership roles in the education sector.
The Level 1 exam consists almost entirely of multiple-choice question, and it’s not proctored. With a basic understanding and some strategy—or even some skill searching—most people can pass. However, I insisted on relying on my actual skills and ended up scoring an impressive 97 out of 100 (just one wrong out of 35 questions). I even clearly knew that the mistake came from a detail in operating Google Classroom.
I was really happy to share my score report online, and I ended up encouraging a bunch of my students to take the certification exam with me.
Mindset Shift After Failing Level 2 the First Time
For my first attempt, I chose the English version of the exam. Although I consider my English quite good, many of the details were actually quite difficult to read—especially the practical scenario questions, where slight differences in wording could directly affect my judgment.
One of the questions asked: Can the host of a Google Meet turn off everyone’s cameras with one click? I instinctively thought of Zoom: hosts can mute everyone, right? So they should be able to control cameras too, right?
But it turns out Google Meet is designed with a strong emphasis on user privacy—hosts cannot turn off everyone’s cameras with a single click. I got that question wrong. Along with a few other misjudged answers, I ended up scoring 78, just one question away from passing.
After the exam, I emailed customer support to ask if I could switch the language to Chinese and retake it. Their reply: We can offer you a refund, but we can’t change the exam language.
So I had no choice but to forfeit that attempt and re-register for the Traditional Chinese version using a different Gmail account.
Finally, in the middle of the night on October 6, 2025, I passed the Level 2 exam.
But what truly changed me was my mindset.
At first, I just wanted to pass quickly and add the certificate to my resume checklist. But when I finally slowed down, read through the official Google training materials page by page, and practiced each tool hands-on, I began to feel the true power of learning.
It wasn’t just about stacking up features—it was the realization that I could actually use these tools in such flexible ways.
From Classroom to Sheets, from Forms to Keep, every trial and error, every small success, felt like unlocking a whole new universe of skills.
As I continued learning, I found that I was no longer studying just to pass the test.
I was genuinely enjoying the feeling of making progress.
And that kind of intrinsic motivation became the most valuable reward in the entire learning process.
From Advanced User to Certified Trainer: Turning Sharing into a Profession
After I successfully passed Level 2, that inner drive to “truly master it” didn’t stop. I began organizing sharing sessions within my team, teaching my colleagues about pivot tables in Sheets and automation tricks in Forms. I discovered that teaching others is the best way to learn. In order to explain a feature clearly, I had to understand it even more deeply myself.
This experience of sharing made me realize that I could take on a more active role. So, I decided to pursue the Google Certified Trainer program. It was no longer just a personal skills test—it was an application that required me to demonstrate both training ability and leadership. I organized my past sharing sessions into a training portfolio and completed the dedicated Trainer course.
From a “practitioner” at Level 2 to an “enabler” as a Trainer, this transformation helped me understand that true digital competence isn’t just about becoming stronger myself—it’s about igniting passion in those around me, and co-creating a more efficient, collaborative digital work environment.
How I Prepared: Completed the Official Course in One Week and Studied Over 21 Hours Independently
Google offers a comprehensive e-learning course, which I diligently completed in one week, accumulating over 21 hours of study time. Through this process, I picked up many practical skills that I could apply directly to my work, such as:
- heets: Conditional formatting, data validation, pivot tables
- Docs: Comments, collaboration, automatic notifications
- Forms: Response limits, auto-close responses, automatic score analysis
- Chrome: Tab grouping, bookmark synchronization
- Earth: Creating geography/history projects or tracking the footsteps of famous people
- Extensions & Add-ons: Automating teaching workflows
- Gmail: Scheduling emails, creating canned response templates for common questions
- Calendar: Setting up “appointment slots” for others to book, sharing team calendars
- Slides: Editing master slides for consistent formatting, creating internal links for interactive presentations
- Keep: OCR image-to-text conversion, setting “location-based reminders” for to-dos
- Sites: Building internal project hubs, embedding various Google Drive files
- YouTube: Organizing videos into playlists, adding chapters for quick navigation
- My Maps: Planning customized travel or event routes, creating visual resource maps
- Drive: Using shared drives for team-owned files, finding documents quickly with advanced search commands
These features might not be used every day, But once I learned them, they truly made an impact!
Preparation Process: From Rushing to Pass to Truly Wanting to Learn
When you truly take the time to learn, you’ll realize that many seemingly simple features are actually incredibly practical and powerful.
Take Google Sheets, for example—conditional formatting, data validation, and pivot tables; or in Google Docs—collaborative editing, commenting, and notification settings; or even in Chrome—using tab groups to organize your workspace more cleanly. And then there’s Google Earth, which I had never used before—turns out, you can use it to trace the historical journeys of famous figures, like Marco Polo’s exploration routes.
Many of these features actually come with a wide range of free, ready-to-use templates. And within Google’s core tools—like Docs, Sheets, and Forms—there are also Add-ons that help you extend their functionality. You can now set response limits on Forms, automatically close submissions, or If the score exceeds 80, a digital certificate will be automatically issued—applications I had never imagined before, but are now completely achievable.
Throughout this process, my mindset also began to shift—from “I just want to pass quickly” to “I genuinely want to master this.”
And that, to me, is the key mindset of an agile learner: we’re not afraid of failure—what we fear is learning a bunch of things that we never truly apply.
While preparing for Google Certified Educator Level 2, I realized that nearly every exam scenario connected directly to my day-to-day work. These scenarios felt like agile task cards, pushing me to think about how digital tools could support training and coaching design.
For example, I used Google Forms to design a Sprint Review reflection survey, enabling teams to assess their learning outcomes after class. I used Google Sheets to plan course schedules and group arrangements, and to track feedback and learning data in real time. I collaborated on lesson plans with fellow trainers using Google Docs, allowing for simultaneous updates. And I created visual course storylines using Slides to help learners quickly grasp key points.
Beyond that, I used Google Keep to capture classroom insights and ideas, Google Drive for version control, and YouTube to curate learning playlists and video materials. What started as just supporting tools for work gradually became my secret weapons for driving agile learning—making the learning process more transparent, collaborative, and infused with a rhythm of continuous improvement.
Google Certified Educator: A Universal Competency Benchmark for the Digital Age
All of these skills are included in Google’s official e-learning platform, and I recommend that everyone start their self-learning journey from there. Study seriously, and then take on the certification challenge. The only thing I don’t recommend is guessing answers or relying on shortcut videos from YouTubers—that approach is truly meaningless.
Level 2, in particular, is proctored live. You’re required to keep your webcam and microphone on throughout the exam (just like the remote PMP exam), and you can’t use AI tools to search for answers. This ensures exam integrity and gives the certification real professional value.
To be honest, the name “Certified Educator” might sound intimidating, as if it’s only meant for teachers. But in fact, whether you’re an engineer, manager, marketer, PM, administrator, or even an everyday knowledge worker—if you want to get better at using the tools you rely on daily, this certification will benefit you.
Because most people use Google tools at a 40% level, but to pass the Certified Educator exam, you’ll need to reach at least 80% in understanding and application. Once you truly learn how to use these tools, your time management, productivity, and collaboration skills will improve significantly.
That’s why I recommend this certification—not just to get the credential, but to truly master the tools and use them well. It becomes a foundational skill for working effectively with AI in the future.
Three Major Challenges of Level 2: This Is What a Real Hands-On Exam Looks Like
It’s challenging in three key areas:
- It tests real application, not rote memorization. You might know how to use Google Sheets—but can you create a pivot table? You’re familiar with Google Docs—but can you design a collaborative course outline? You use Google Slides for presentations—but can you turn them into instructional guides? Level 2 is made up entirely of scenario-based questions, requiring hands-on application in realistic educational settings. The tasks are detailed and practical.
- Over 30 tools—you need more than just the basics. Beyond Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and Meet, you’ll also need to understand tools like Sites, Blogger, Earth, Keep, Tasks, Charts, Add-ons, Extensions, and more. This certification truly feels like an all-in combo meal.
- It’s proctored—you can’t cheat. The exam requires your webcam and microphone to be on the entire time, with a live proctor monitoring you remotely. This means any shortcut or trickery simply won’t work—you must rely on genuine knowledge and skill.
A truly valuable certification should meet three key criteria—and Level 2 delivers on all of them.
- It has credibility (e.g., proctored exams)
- It offers practical content (skills you can actually use)
- It supports real improvements in your career and daily life
Education Philosophy Is Evolving Too: The Three Teaching Models Promoted by Google
Once you truly master these Google tools, you’ll notice a major difference: time management becomes more efficient, knowledge organization becomes more structured, instructional design gets more creative, and team collaboration becomes smoother. More importantly, these skills aren’t something you’ll forget after passing the exam—they continue to show up in your daily work, deepen with use, and gradually become part of your long-term professional edge.
Zooming out, these digital skills are not in conflict with AI—they’re complementary. As AI becomes more mainstream, the key is no longer which model you use, but whether you can combine tools into an efficient workflow. My AI mentor, Shary, often says: The true power of AI isn’t in a single tool—it’s in the combo. That insight has been incredibly valuable.
For example, when we create podcasts or short-form video content, it’s a classic case of combining AI tools. You might start by using NotebookLM to organize interview notes and key ideas, then use ChatGPT to help draft or polish the script. From there, you can feed the text into a video generator, even adding a Digital Human to deliver the voiceover on screen. With this kind of workflow, what used to require a whole team can now be done in a fraction of the time.
But here’s the catch—you need to first master the basic digital tools. If you’re not even comfortable navigating the Google ecosystem, no matter how powerful AI is, it’ll still feel out of reach. AI won’t do the learning for you—it will only amplify the skills you already have. Mastering Google tools is like building your “digital core strength.” Once that foundation is solid, AI can truly help you accelerate.
That’s why I always tell my students: “Don’t rush to chase the newest AI trend—use AI to solve your real pain points first.” AI shouldn’t be a show-off—it should be your support system. And while Google tools may seem unrelated to AI on the surface, they’re actually the best foundation for working alongside it. Once you’re proficient with Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Drive, you create space for AI to step in—amplifying your results and boosting your efficiency.
These skills are worth long-term investment. Just like you need to lay a strong foundation before building a house, if you want to invest in AI, start by investing in your ability to use tools. Once your digital muscles are strong, AI becomes a partner—not a burden.
If you want to learn AI, you don’t need to learn everything at once. Start with your biggest pain point—whether it’s time wasted, document clutter, or course design. Pick one scenario, master it, and then gradually combine tools to solve it. This kind of learning isn’t just practical—it also lets you experience the real power of technology working for you.
Conclusion
The official price for Level 1 is USD 10 (currently available for free in some promotions), while Level 2 costs USD 25. In my case, since I had to retake the Level 2 exam, the total came to USD 50 (around NT$1,600). I also took on the Trainer Skills Assessment, which only cost USD 15. No matter how you calculate it, the return on investment is incredibly high—considering the wealth of practical skills gained and the professional recognition that comes with it.
If you want to become more proficient with digital tools, sharpen your instructional design abilities, or simply bring more structure to your daily life, I encourage you: start with Google Certified Educator Level 1, and then go for Level 2.
It’s not just a certificate—it’s a starting point for unlocking digital literacy and a lifelong learner’s mindset.