July 28

SMART Superheroes

Home sweet home. After 6 fabulous days at the SMART Exemplary Educator (SEE) Summit in Calgary, Alberta Canada I’m home. I’ve hugged my family, unpacked and even started laundry but my heart has a sad spot. For those 6 amazing days I’ve been surrounded by 56 passionate educators from the around the world. We love technology integration so much so that we spent one week of summer submerged in it. Our utopia. SMART Technologies has gone so far beyond treating us like the superheroes we now know we are. We are one SMART superhero team. 

Looking at photographs, reading social media posts, my heart is a little heavy to know my team is all over the world..and not with me collaborating, talking and laughing. My heart is also beaming with pride knowing I can call on any of them and they will be there to guide me, help me, support me-the perfect side kick. 

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SEEs and SMART developers at the Hackathon

Why is this week so amazing? How do I begin to explain it? Is it my friends who I’ve kept in touch with since the 2012 Summit who greeted me with best hugs? Is it the new leader who studied all of our profiles and said hello with our name as soon as we arrived at the hotel, which set the tone for this adventure? Is it the bonding events that occurred every day in every way imaginable be it challenging sessions, evening events or the discussions about how to continue, share and grow our passion for collaboration? Or was it that when we spoke with SMART Technology developers, marketing engineers and executives there was no “us and them”, we are a team. A team that shared, supported, challenged and created amazing things.    

                                                                                            The beginning of the application explained it as “a week long intensive professional development”. It was a week long, but intensive doesn’t seem to match the experience…empowering would be better. For I am now empowered with tools of a program that promotes cross-curricular learning. I am empowered with a collaborative team that lives in different corners of the world and a plan to show our students how wonderful each area is. I am empowered with ideas and a plan to find more superhero teachers in my local school. Most importantly I am empowered with a family of superheroes that each have their own unique super power that is ready to shine.

Thank you, SMART Technologies, for reminding me that I have super powers, side kicks and superheroes all around me.

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A few superheroes (teachers from around the world)

 

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Posted July 28, 2016 by jkuzma in category Uncategorized

1 thoughts on “SMART Superheroes

  1. Shelly Hawkins

    Sounds so cool Julie!! Glad you were able to go and that you love this stuff so much. you are an inspiration to me.

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