Summer Lovin'

As a teacher, summer used to be a time to forget about the school year.  I would spend half of June, July, and most of August doing NOTHING school related.  Instead, I traveled, slept in, read, exercised, visited friends and family, and ran a lot of errands that I did not have time for during the school year.  I loved it.  Work was work.  Teaching was my profession and passion, but I longed to be inspired.  Then, I took a leap.  Leaping is not easy, and does not always come naturally for me.  Jumping off the diving board looks fun, climbing the ladder to the top, seemingly bravely, and then looking down is the easy part, but actually jumping takes courage.  Well, I jumped into online teaching and learning.  This is rather funny actually since technology is also something that does not come naturally to me.  Because I am curious and a pretty fast learner, I started to embrace the evolution, the possibilities, the opportunities associated with doing things differently.
This summer has been spent meeting with colleagues, teaching summer school, attending the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference, developing online courses, reading innovative articles, tweets, facebook posts, blogs, exploring things like Ning, Jing, Prezi, and Lulu, and spending my free time researching topics such as Flipping the Classroom and Project Based Learning.  Even on vacation, when the day was done, the kids were asleep, and my mind was still awake, I was reading, creating, and collaborating.  Am I crazy?   No, I am inspired, and lovin' it.