A Note of Thanks

So, yesterday I had the privilege of spending about 8 hours working. I know, working on a Saturday does not necessarily sound like a privilege. But it was. I had the pleasure of working side by side with three of my colleagues who work in the same building as I do day to day. Mary and Mary and Kathy all agreed to take a Saturday away from their families and friends and join us in learning to use GeoGebra. I cannot feel them (or you) how much I appreciate their willingness to do so. I also had the pleasure of meeting three people from the Philadelphia area who all agreed to give up a Saturday AND to travel two hours to do so. Ed, and Whitney and Andy all took a chance. They heard about our workshop through a flyer that was distributed on a Philadelphia area teachers email list (thanks Ruth!) and, knowing little to nothing about me, my school, or our presenter, they chose to commit a Saturday in May to come and learn with us. I sure hope to continue hearing from them and to build some real community with them even if they are two hours away. I finally had the pleasure of meeting Justin in person! I’ve been reading his blog (and commenting there) and communicating with him on twitter. It’s been a pleasure feeling like we are building a relationship and it was a total treat to finally meet him in person. He drove from the Pittsburgh area to his mom’s house on Friday. Drove to my school and back to his mom’s house on Saturday and today he is driving back to Pittsburgh. He was full of energy, joy, and ideas yesterday and he helped make the day for me. What a treat! Lastly, I finally got to meet Jen in person. Jen has been completely generous of her time and her knowledge. I”ve been picking her brain via emails and google chats. I’ve been stealing ideas from her and she is the main reason I’m brave enough to tackle a curriculum project this summer. I’ll be writing an iBook for our Geometry course next year and I could not have conceived of doing this without her inspiration. She and her husband Charlie drove down from Connecticut and Jen was our leader in this exploration. We made some fantastic discoveries with each other (and through the help of remote twitter colleagues), we wondered and played. All of us were tired at the end and our brains hurt. That’s a great feeling, isn’t it? Community can mean many things and yesterday I felt that my community exploded beyond the walls of my school.

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