My Challenge and Inspiration

As I said in an earlier post, a friend and I were selected to present at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference this week, and to say I was nervous would be an understatement.  Presenting to 300 educators was so far outside my comfort zone! However, I've always been one to step up to a challenge.  I like having something to look back on and say "Wow, if I did THAT then THIS won't be a problem at all!" I truly believe that the following reasons are why we were successful this week:

1) We were presenting on a topic we knew a lot about and believed was important. 
2) We have sat through many boring PL meetings and veered our presentation away from what we DIDN'T like about those meetings. 
3) We were prepared! I think we rehearsed that presentation more than 10 times together.

Since we were the last session on the last day of the conference we really didn't expect many people to come.  So, when we saw a crowd waiting to get into our session we were pleasantly surprised.  Then to hear from so many teachers after that were inspired by our presentation and excited about taking our ideas back to their classrooms was icing on the cake.  That's why we were really there.  To think that my ideas are inspiring students I have never met is amazing to me. 

By the way, I'm already thinking about what I will present next year :-)