This one's for Kelly, a teacher from outside Albany who joined us from a family trip to Fiji, but still managed to call in for @WriteOutConnect professional development (and on the National Day on Writing). I've never been to Fiji, will never likely get to Fiji, and to be honest, I had to Google its location so I could put a place in my mind from where she called from.
It was fascinating, because Rich started with a simple prompt, "What's a word that's been on your mind?" and 40-minutes later we realized that prompt got all of us writing, sharing, communicating, and discussing. Truth is, we also learned new vocabulary words and found out that there's a .gif for everything. I learned, for instance, that when seagulls leave their marking across the windshield of my Subaru Crosstrek, I can shout, "I've been strafed." Even better, if a flock of seagulls are shoaling, my windshield doesn't stand a chance (that's biology 101, especially when studying body functions - mechanical digestion is scientific and, I supposed, can be rather mathematical).
We learned quickly, however, that our PD needed to move to the Twittersphere and we joined the WriteOut twitter chat rather late (but we got there). Tomorrow, we meet again at Weir Farm National Historical Park for our final day of this year's Reading Landscapes and Writing Nature, the 6th year of the CWP-Fairfield/NPS partnership. We are going to continue our collaborations because, well, it just makes pedagogical sense. I feel bad for any educator in Connecticut who hasn't had the opportunity to learn the environmental possibilities of this incredible resource.
Yes, today is Friday. No, I'm not on top of my game. But I'm looking forward to a day of minimal meetings to catch my breath and to steady myself for tomorrow.
Make it a a great one, everyone. Find a word on your mind, and start writing. It's amazing the places it will take you.