Little Miss Geek

#EdCampIL was one of the best EdCamps I have ever been to, and I'm not just saying that because I helped organize it. There were a ton of EdCamp newbies there, which was very exciting. I remember my first EdCamp I was a little scared to jump in. I didn't know very many people and I wasn't sure that I had much to contribute to the conversation. Needless to say my hesitance has been quelled, learning and sharing at EdCamps, on Social Media, on this blog, and in the world has become my heartsong. Anyway, enough about me and back to the point, all of the EdCamp newbies last weekend were not hesitant, they jumped in and asked questions. It was awesome! I loved getting to meet all of these new people.  One of the best sessions I went to was the Collaborative Coaching session. I was overwhelmed by the number of instructional and technology coaches there were. Sometimes I think it is easy to feel like an island when you're the only coach in your building or in many cases...

As you might have read in a previous post, my school district is going 1:1 Chromebooks in third through eighth grades. The past couple weeks we rolled out the middle school Chromebooks in our C(hr)ome Explore events. This week I helped organize and distribute Chromebooks to our Carpenter third, fourth, and fifth grade studnets. I also worked with each of the third grade classrooms as this was their first time logging in to their Google accounts and touching a Chromebook. It was a very exciting week!

No, this wasn’t my first ISTE rodeo, but there was something very unique about this time for me … I presented a poster session. If you would have met me ten years ago the first word that you would probably use to describe me would most likely have been shy, or it would have at least made the top ten. If you met me this week shy probably wouldn’t be on the list, actually I would think that if I called myself shy people might look at me like I was crazy. I’m not really sure what caused this change, what triggered it, when it happened, or whether it has slowly occurred over time. What I do know is that I am so happy that I have gained confidence. Anyway… Last year at #ISTE13 in San Antonio I decided to drive (so I might actually be a little crazy) in early so that I could attend the pre-conference #HackEd event. One of the sessions that I went to was on Coaching. Having just finished my first year as an Instructional Technology Coach in Park Ridge I had a lot to share. At some point...