My #ISTE17 Ignite Resources

I was very lucky to have attended my first ISTE and honored to be selected to share during an Ignite Session. While I do not have the original video of me sharing during the session, I was given a challenge to record myself delivering my Ignite speech (details on that later in the post). Since the slides are not super clear, I have included them below the video. There are gray boxes that are hyperlinked to blog posts where I share more about the learning experiences that are taking place in the images.

The Background Story Before the Ignite

Let’s go back to Fall 2016 when ISTE 17 was just a thought. I knew I wanted to attend and if I was going to attend I wanted to share about what my kids were creating with technology. It was early in the school year and I was trying to get my life together with teaching. When I checked the deadline to submit a proposal to present, I realized I’d have to whip something up overnight – that didn’t happen.

Fast forward to the spring, when the “call for new ideas” opened, I was on it! I submitted my proposal to share about #GAfE4Littles and was accepted! Litttle did I know, I signed myself up for an Ignite Session – 5 minutes to share a passion with slides that automatically change every 15 seconds. My original thoughts were, “I’m super passionate about what my kids do. It’ll be like telling a story.” Had I kept that calm thinking, I would have been okay.

School ended, and summer brought on a different kind of busy, and then it was time for ISTE. I did some searching on past Ignite sessions, and panic sunk in. What if I can’t see my slides as they change? How will I keep time? What if I have a brain fart? 5 MINUTES?! I can talk about #GAfE4Littles for DAYS, I’ll go off tangent for sure! What if I leave something out? I let that doubtful thinking get the best of me.

What did I decide to do? I read my speech off my paper. I limited my own potential. I thought having that security blanket would help me out. I spoke with passion during my speech, and it did go well. However, it wasn’t my best and I could have done better.

Step 1 – Believe in Yourself

Duh, Pinto!! I preach this all the time, but forgot to say it back to myself when I needed to. After reflecting with a friend, I was challenged to do my Ignite speech again WITHOUT the paper. This required me to figure out a way to record myself with the slides changing automatically. Challenge accepted.

At first, I had my speech down, but lacked “the Pinto spunk.” What good is that? Eventually, a wave of courage came over me; I guess you can say I put my mindset on “believe mode.” THIS IS A THING! When you replace doubtful thoughts with optimism, you get a believer's mindset. Share on X

Reflecting on the Gains

So my recorded video is not the best quality…a couple of my slides are hard to see and it appears that I’m lacking my trademark hair bun. Sure, I have video evidence that I can share about a passion of mine without reading from a paper. That is not what I have gained. This experience has reminded me of three things: believe in myself, step out of my comfort zone, and raise the bar for myself. We can’t go back in time and undo what has already been done, but we can move forward with our thinking and embrace opportunities to grow.

 

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