Amping up at SMART HQ

The first day at SMART Technologies HQ was a great success and still is while I'm writing this. We are with 76(!) SMART Exemplary Educators in one room with great SMARTians to enrich us and make sure than even after day one we will gain a lot which we will takje home and can use directly in our class room. That is my experience after almost one day spending with loads of inspiring people.

At first president of education Greg Estell welcomed us with his keynote about education and how important we as teachers are and can make a difference. He was very kind and made sure that we understood that we are more than welcome and that we matter. Good to know.

"A brand is no longer what a company tells the consumer it is. It's what consumers tell each other it is."

Jenna shared a lot information about the roadmap of the software and hardware of SMART Technologies, but since we signed an NDA we don't have permission to tweet, blog, etc. about it. All I can say is that it keeps on mind-blowing for me ...

Heather Lamb, Erica Arnoldin and others shared (new) features of SMART Notebook 2014 (eXtreme Collaboration, SMART Response VE, Geogebra etc.) and SMART amp during sessions for smaller groups. There's already a list of things that I will take home and will and can use in my SMART Collaborative Classroom.

Stop Motion (200 pics in 20 seconds)

I handed out some souvenirs from The Netherlands and Alphen aan den Rijn - the town I live - to SEEs that I and my students have been working with the past year and to make sure that we will collaborate more next school year. Michelle from Illinois, Mary from Florida, Hamdy from Saudi Arabia and Yulia from Russia are the SEEs present. SEEs that are not present like Emil from the Czech Republic and Kate from Philadelphia.

At the end of the day I was asked to do a TV interview. How awesome is that. I don't have any footage yet, but there's a picture of me at SMART HQ with the TV camera. Lunch was very good, snacks and drinks were provided. After all it was a good day! Looking forward to do more tomorrow!

P.S. check the hashtag #smartee on Twitter to follow in on what's happening at the Global SEE Summit.

With Sergio and Allen