DENSI 2015 Overview

I'll start off with saying that I believe all professional development should be like DENSI.  It was a purposefully crafted week that allowed for whole group sessions, hands-on exploration, discussion, collaboration, and smaller break-out sessions that were dictated by teacher's choices (unconference).  

Here was the overview:

Sunday

We took arrived at American University and I was already exhausted.  I left Las Vegas at 12:30 am, landed in Philly around 8 am, then landed in DC at 11.  DENSI doesn't start until 3, but my suite mate was awesome and picked me up from the airport and let me drop my bags off in my room.  She had been there since Friday because she is on the Leadership Council.  I then found two newbies from Chicago and we went off in search of food.  We must have found the DENSI hotspot because I saw my roommate there (along with a good three dozen other hungry teachers).  After lunch (and gelato), we headed back to officially begin DENSI.

After getting our lanyards and fighting for the elevator, we took our press photos, unpacked, and had dinner.  DE brought in food trucks and then we did a gift swap and scavenger hunt.  Part of our packing instructions were to bring a gift that represented our home town, so I brought a mug, playing cards, and a poker chip key chain for my mystery person.  I got some peanuts from Virginia (lucky B!) and my person was super friendly.  We also got our DENSI swag, which included a Shark Week hat (I love Shark Week) and a selfie stick.

We then had our opening session, went over the schedule, and had some guest speakers.  We broke off into our smaller team meetings.  Since all of our team was female, we named ourselves the Estro-DEN.  One of the ladies on my team was also my suite mate, so that was a fun coincidence.

Monday

We spent the morning site seeing and the afternoon on our own.  I chose to spend the afternoon in the Natural History museum, including an accidental nap during an Imax movie on oceans.  (To be fair, it was a very soothing and calming movie.)

We saw the Thomas Jefferson, FDR, Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln, Vietnam, and Korean war monuments.  We drove by Embassy row, the Washington monument, and the White House.

Snapshots from Monday:

(Inside and outside of the Jefferson Memorial)

Dr. King

(Fun fact: His position means he's staring at Lincoln's monument, where he gave his I have a Dream Speech)

President FDR's memorial

(We were told not to sit on his lap. I'm disturbed that the tour guide deemed it necessary to tell us that in the first place.)

Washington's monument 

(Fun fact, you can see the different layers because of construction issues about 1/3 of the way up!)

Korean War Memorial

President Lincoln (Notice the hands are A and L in American Sign Language)

(Added to the Lincoln memorial steps to honor Dr. King)

The White House

After site seeing and dinner, my roommie and I crashed.  We'd been up for a while and both were on West Coast time, so the 6 am alarm seemed very early.

Tuesday

I immediately began to hate my alarm clock.  We had to get to the dining hall early to compete for food with hundreds of enthusiastic children.  I'm pretty sure the future leaders of America (or a similar spin off) were there, so there were lots of sixteen year olds in business attire trying to navigate the campus in heels.  We didn't even bother attempting Starbucks when we saw the line out the door. 

On the bright side, this was a site we saw every morning:

(As a Nevadan, I enjoyed the greenery.)

After breakfast was our morning session, then break out mini-sessions (which I'll reflect upon later) with lunch in between.  I took notes on my pink memo pad, which is ironic considering I'm at a tech conference, but that's how I process information the best.

(On a completely unrelated note, I also process learning best when I have Starbucks and chocolate...)

I attended: PBL in the media rich classroom (project/problem based learning), doodling in the classroom (as a means of note taking), showing what you know (projects), and library and digital resources (to share with my librarian).  All my sessions were amazing.

Dinner followed, then the DENmazing race (the Amazing Race, Discovery Style).  My team was not competitive (hence the name the Frolicking Unicorns) but we had a great time.  As an added bonus, I found some new team builder games to use next year with Sunshine committee.

We had to jog through the hoops and then crawl through the tunnel before throwing a football through another hoop at the end of the station.  There were at least eight different embarrassing games.  

After the DENmazing race, we did an escape room.  This was my first time participating in one and it was awesome.  It was 1985 themed and our team escaped the room the fastest.  We had to work together to solve clues and figure out puzzles to enter different rooms within the escape room (there were six rooms total, so I guess it was the escape suite).  

Wednesday

Again, the alarm clock came too soon as did the fight for the omelet line with the children.  The day was again broken into smaller mini-sessions.  

I attended: Coding (which I definitely need to investigate more), app smashing (combining different apps into a project), portable presentations (a good dozen things to use besides Prezi), and took the last session off to process everything I'd learned so far.

I also had some time with the DENSI gnome. 

He is not to be left alone and enjoys meeting all the DENSI participants.

We then did another team builder that focused on mini-debates that could be used in the classroom, had a team meeting, (had a post-dinner nap), and then had a DENovator (craft) fair.  I made a shark week coaster (because obviously), a few other small craft projects, and had a great time chatting with others.  

I don't know how, but I want to do something like this for our wedding.  The craft wheels in my mind are spinning!

I also snagged this iron-on to use on a future project:

Next time I attend, I'll definitely plan a craft to share :)

Thursday

Thursday is both my favorite and least favorite day of DENSI.

It's my favorite because it's unconference day, which means the sessions are all created based on what we as educators want.  It's loosely structured and meant to allow for glorious amounts of collaboration.  

I attended information on utilizing twitter and instagram in the classroom (teaching_with_avice if you choose to follow), classroom dojo, mystery skyping, and more.  There was so much wonderful information that I can't wait to share (both here and with my school).

Thursday evening brought our history-themed closing session.  Being the only delegate from my state, it was a little sad to see all the group themed costumes and not have anyone to collaborate with.  I represented the West with Annie Oakley because I already owned all of my costume components.  Some of the other states went as cave women, Egyptian pharaohs, and history bees (yes, bees).

Friday 

We cleaned our room, headed to breakfast, and then to our tear-filled final session.  I headed to the airport to meet Erika and then began our best friend filled weekend.  

I returned home late Monday evening and have been slowly processing the week since then.  I'm a little frustrated in my delay at getting out DENSI notes, but I've also had eye doc appointments and the puppy is interested in chewing on everything but her toys, so she requires constant vigilance.  Good thing she's cute.

Stay tuned for more in depth session notes!

The MOH asking

I'm still emotionally and academically processing DENSI 2015, so I will start with something easier to write about: my weekend with my best friend and maid of honor (MOH).

DENSI ended Friday at lunch time and her flight got into Reagan at 2:30 (which became almost four pm...thank you state of Connecticut for that one).  Since it's totally normal to chill at the airport with luggage, I met her at the gate, sign in hand.  

Unfortunately, there were no nice people who would take a picture to capture the moment, but that's okay.  I met her at the gate and showed her both sides of the sign.  It took her a minute to process before she responded with an enthusiastic NO.

Correct, a NO. 

I just looked at her and she laughed, then said of course she'd do it.  Hugs ensued. We made our way back to our airbnb (which was adorably first ladies themed) and unpacked.  She got us wedding planning guides (I love lists) as a silly engagement present.  B's is basically about not losing his mind during the ordeal.

 We then headed to a Top Chef restaurant (on her bucket list) and then to a ghost themed tour of the Capitol Building, Supreme Court, and surrounding blocks.  Spoiler alert...we captured absolutely no ghost activity on our phones and I earned some ridiculously large blisters from wearing the wrong shoes for our adventure.

I expressed my concern at becoming a bridezilla and asked her to keep me accountable.  There are many other exciting things in my life (and hers) that aren't related to this one wedding weekend.  

We did more planning the next night, over a bottle of wine on the rooftop of our apartment building.  

Things we decided: (and things I should probably fill B in on...)

1) I'll get a sitter for the reception.  There will be kids at the reception and parents will want a place to park them.  Perhaps a separate room at the reception hall, complete with video games, puzzles, coloring books, and board games.  This way parents can have fun, together, instead of one sitting out with the munchkins.  Since our officiant has worked with a nanny company on the Las Vegas strip, it shouldn't be too hard to get a recommendation from her.  We'll also include this information on our wedding website, which I'm in the process of making.

2) We talked about things that will be on the wedding registry.  She mentioned a friend had included some funny line about "the jig is up!" and how they'd been living together for a while, so they didn't need a lot of home goods.  I think I'll incorporate something like that into our wedding website.  We own two vacuums.  Our Keurig works great and we bought a Kitchen-aid mixer when it was on sale.  We're grown ups and for the most part, have our lives together.  So we'll be registering for some various household things and honeymoon experiences.  B is really wanting to register for a kegerator (a fridge that has a keg inside) so I must find a way to redirect his energy...because I fear all his friends will actually chip in for one and it will live in our garage.

3) Activity for the bridal shower.  It will take some work from the participants ahead of time, but she's going to ask each lady to bring a wedding picture of a couple they admire.  It could be themselves, grandparents, relatives, etc.  They'll also bring a piece of advice for a long and happy marriage.  We haven't decided if we'll incorporate this into table decorations at the reception or just make it into a scrapbook.

4) There will be mimosas at the wedding shower.  I respect people's decision to not drink, but I do like drinking, so it will be included in wedding events.  There will be classy mimosas in champagne flutes, not keg stands and PBR in red solo cups.  

5) The timeline.  The wedding will be at least a year away and I plan to start dress shopping around Christmas time, so hopefully she can pop up and join for that!  

6) Her parents.  Basically, my second set of parents and they're invited to basically every aspect of wedding weekend.  I'd love for her mom to join us in the bridal suite for the primping.  She can join my mom in the crying portion of the day while they comment on how beautiful their babies look (because obviously we will be gorgeous).  I invited her dad to give a speech, which he's already planning and I think that's adorable.  They just wanted to make sure it was okay with me and B (and my mom) if they were there for things.  

7) I want to do a sleepover with her the night before the wedding in the bridal suite.  We will also be taking jumping on the bed pictures before the real wedding prep begins:

 (image from pinterest)

I looked through several wedding magazines over yesterday's epic day of travel (DC to Houston to Vegas, with four hours of layovers).  I got a few more cute ideas, but was overwhelmed by much of it.  One of the "simple, backyard weddings" was $181,000.  They "splurged a bit" on things, but spent no money on the venue.

Are you freaking kidding me?! That's close to the cost of our house.

So then I got frustrated by these "norms" because yes, my wedding will be expensive, but no, we won't be going into ridiculous debt to pay for it.  Looming wedding payments are not how I want to start a lifetime together.

I haven't finalized my decision on bridesmaids yet and I'm hoping my mom can come up for Labor Day so we can have an engagement party.  

Alas, the wedding planning must be put on hold for more practical matters of the day: cleaning, laundry, and processing DENSI.

My bags are packed...

I've got a fully charged iPad, my planners, and a suitcase I'm hoping is just under the fifty pound limit.  It must be time for DENSI 2015!

I won't be blogging while there, just tweeting (@AllyVice) so you can follow live updates there! 

I need time to synthesize my thoughts and when we're busy from 7 am until 9 pm each night, that reflection time won't happen until I'm back!

Hooray for learning!

DENSI, round two

Now that I've confirmed my place and told friends and family, I'm pleased to announce that I'll be headed to Washington DC this summer to participate in DENSI 2015!

DENSI, which is short for the Discovery Education Network Summer Institute, is a week long collaboration event that focuses on networking, technology, and learning from other teachers.  I went two years ago in Vermont and had a wonderful time.  I skipped last year's event because I'd just bought a home and was in the middle of an extensive kitchen remodel (refinishing nearly forty different cabinet doors) and unpacking a home.  

This year I'll be back to continue learning from other amazing educators. I can't wait to take the information I learn and share it with my colleagues (and here online).

It looks like my Leslie Knope dreams are coming true after all!

 

Fingers Crossed...

Today I'm taking a leap of faith.

I decided to apply to Discovery Educator Network's Summer Institute (DENSI).  I went two years ago when the institute was in Burlington, Vermont.  It was an amazing opportunity that I will hopefully get to repeat!  I didn't apply last year because we'd just bought a house and I was in the middle of remodeling the kitchen (painting all the cabinets) as well as unpacking.

Before making the decision, I called B to discuss the idea.  This summer we plan to adopt a puppy, so I wanted to make sure he'd be okay with three pets by himself for a week.

He was amazingly supportive and encouraged me to go for it.  He likened the experience to being Leslie Knope (my spirit animal) and conquering DC.  With his support, (and my best friend's and mom's), I decided to go for it!

I wrote out my application questions and am practicing my video.  My school's literacy coach is amazing and agreed to film it for me Monday morning.  I don't know how to edit videos, so I've got just one shot to make it right!

Applications are due May 1st (apply here) and I'll find out May 16th.

Will you be joining me in DC?