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This week, since it was Spring Break, I attended a conference in upstate New York focusing on the subject of Technology and Transliteracy. Though the targeted audience was school librarians, there were many attendees who were simply in search of new ways to reinvigorate their classrooms and students through the use of technology. I came out of the conference thinking several key points but the most evident was how well prepared I feel from my masters program through Full Sail. There were very few technologies, web 2.0 tools, classroom concepts, etc that I hadn’t seen or tried, thanks to this past year of my life. And honestly, I felt I could have been a presenter at this conference (I’ve never left a conference feeling that way), which further reinforced the Presentation/Leadership project that we are preparing. It was a wonderful feeling to feel prepared and trained to be doing what I’m doing. Prior to going back to school as a graduate student I felt that something was missing in my teaching. I knew I needed more education to really give my students the proper experience they should have in my classroom. I never imagined that I would change so much and actually be doing some of the things I’m doing now.

The other surprising part was my conversation with the keynote speaker, the Dean of Empire State College, who had been discussing his digital storytelling class.   I was so impressed that there was such a class (digital storytelling is my action research) so I approached him after he spoke to ask him a few questions about it. What was incredible for me was that after telling him about my research he asked if I’d ever be interested in teaching it online! He gave me his card and asked me to contact him about it.  I thought of Full Sail, I thought of Zander and I thought about the universe of possibility and felt like I had experienced a transformational moment. A conversation that took only a few minutes can have a powerful effect on someone’s life! That’s what we can also do for our students.