First ever #EduHike!

Sunday was a very historic day, at least to me. I organized and hiked the first ever EduHike! I thought of #EduHike in February 2015, and played around with the idea in my head. Finally, last November I actually started taking steps to plan the first ever EduHike.

#EduHike - round 1

The basic concept is to pick a place, date, and time, and invite teacher/education friends to join you. No set agenda other than get some awesome people together, hike, and chat. (Post-hike food or coffee gathering is optional. We met up at an injured friend's house after, so the non-hikers were included.) I've done the Cowles Mountain hike many times, which is why I chose it for the first #EduHike; I wanted a place where I was familiar, and didn't have to think about navigating and hosting. The hike was about 45 minutes up, we spent 15 minutes hanging out at the summit, and about 35 minutes going down. Next time, I'm planning to explore a new hike, and take along someone who has done that hike already.

The #EduHike was great! I loved meeting a new friend, and seeing quite a few familiar faces. In total, we had 8 humans and 1 dog on our hike. During the hike, there was plenty of opportunity to chat with everyone. Too often at conferences and other meet-ups, we spend a lot of the time looking down at a device, and not making real connections. Or, we're too busy Tweeting, blogging, and Voxing to sit down with our PLN and just talk. Even though a lot of the conversation was face to back-of-head (safety!), I felt like the collaborative discussions I had were productive and pushed my thinking in new and deeper directions. There's something about being outside that allows us to relax and happily share our successes and struggles as teachers.

We made it to the top!
Maria, Megan, Riley (dog!), Kate, Meryl, Mari, Nicole, Natalie, Nishantha 

I'm thankful for you all for taking time on your busy Sunday morning to join me on this adventure!

Here's the vlog I made on the hike. Vlogging is way out of my comfort zone, but I'm determined to practice and get better (and less awkward!).

 #EduHike round 2, coming summer 2016! 

PS. Interested in hosting your own? Go for it! I'm thinking about making this a thing at some point...