Monday, June 11, 2018

Making Time...

Today was Day 1 of Summer Spark, a conference I've wanted to attend for a few years but just haven't been able to make it work with my school's calendar. This year, I was able to make it work and I'm so glad that I did. 

Before I dive in and start reflecting on my big take-aways I need to acknowledge something to myself. This blog was like a failed diet the third week in January. Thirteen years ago I was a prolific mommy blogger and then my kids got older and self-conscience so that sort of went away. Two years ago I started this blog...because I have a lot going on in my head that I want to get out and reflect on. I had a decent start and then I just stopped publishing. I have many drafts but never hit, "publish." I would make excuses that I didn't have time to perfect them. I had dozens of ideas in my head for topics that I wanted to write but didn't. 

I didn't have time. 

I had the opportunity to attend a session led by the Pirate herself, Shelley Burgess, had a great quote about time. This is something that really struck me and made me re-evaluate a lot of things I say I don't have time to do. 


Time is a created thing. To say we don't have time
implies we don't really want to do it. 

Ouch. That couldn't be more true. There's a mound of clothing I need to put away and didn't  because I didn't have time (code for: I didn't want to touch it). I didn't have time this morning to work out (nope, didn't want to do that either). I still haven't unpacked the box of stuff I brought home because I just haven't had time in the last three days. Professionally, there are so many things, everyday, that I say I don't have time to do. I do want to blog. I'm no longer going to make the excuse that I don't have time. 

So, here I am. I updated the picture with a real head shot I had done last year, updated the About Me link and I'm going to eventually clean up all my tags because I'm not going to tag every post with Educator Effectiveness stuff. This is for me...not the administrator who evaluates me. Let's be honest, they wouldn't have the time to search through the mess of labels anyway.  

Back to the conference...I saw some of my big names in my PLN or the people I follow/admire on Twitter. The day started with Tom Murray, continued with Shelley Burgess, Rachelle Dene Poth, then Tara Martin and finished with learning about digital breakouts (going back to the beginning of this blog you'll see I got interested in BreakoutEDU. I now have more locks than any normal human being and run large and small Breakouts. I LOVE them).

I now have a long list of engaging apps I want to learn, books I want to read, practices I want to adopt. I can't believe there's one more day! I'm gearing up for lots of interesting PD I'm going to do on my own this summer and here's where I'll document and brainstorm. I have a pretty exciting June; this week is Summer Spark, next week I'll be at Learning FIRST and then wrapping up June at ISTE in Chicago.  Lots of learning and inspiration!

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