Zoom, zoom, zoom….

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If you are like me, you can hear the soundtrack playing in your head …. 

And I think we all wish this whole situation would just, zoom, zoom, zoom away so we can go back to school and be with our students, in our classroom, doing what we do best!

Unfortunately, this is not the zoom, zoom, zoom, I am referring to…

Zoom, or Google Meet or another form of virtual meeting technology, has now become the link to our relationships with our students and colleagues…and for many of us also family and friends.  Our extended family meets every Sunday night to play games together via Zoom…lots of laughs are had by all!  We are definitely making memories.  Professionally, we are having to creatively navigate this virtual world in order to maintain and re-establish ways to collaborate and connect, discuss, share and challenge ideas.  

One of my favorite places to collaborate and connect, discuss, share, and challenge ideas (besides the hallway during passing time) is at our Annual Conference in Duluth.  I look forward to big hugs from friends that I only see each year at the conference and the opportunity to make new friends.  I learn so much from the amazing math educators across the state by attending their sessions, as well as in those informal moments of sharing meals, reminiscing, making new connections, and exchanging all the exciting things happening with our students.  

One of your students’ favorites places to collaborate and connect, discuss, share and challenge ideas is in your classroom.  Our classrooms have created a culture of curiosity, wonder, and friendship.  The predictable routines that helped them to feel safe and learn more than the math concept of the day.  

We, along with our students, are missing these places that bring such joy and energy to our lives.  Zoom can’t recreate these spaces for us, but it does help us stay connected to the sense of “place” that we miss dearly.  This sense of  “place” is shaped by the interactions of the people in it,  not the space itself.  How do we create a new sense of place in this unusual time?  Zoom can help those rich discussions with colleagues still happen.  Zoom opens a window to get to know your students (and them you) in a whole new way.  

Zoom allowed us to hold a Virtual EdCamp. What a gift to connect with educators about the celebrations and challenges of distance learning and brianstorm ways to maintain rich mathematics experiences for students.  Maybe this will be the impetus to create more ways to connect teachers across the state in the future.  

20 years from now, I want to look back and remember, not just everything that I missed or was cancelled, but the amazing things I learned and experienced.  What amazing innovations will come out of this time?  

I challenge you to reach out to that person(s) you always looked forward to seeing in Duluth!  Touch base and share all your exciting ideas over a cup of coffee (virtually).  Reach out to that presenter who’s session you always looked forward to attending, maybe you will get your own personal session!  Check out one of the NCTM 100 Days of Professional Learning Sessions…invite a friend to join you.  This is how we create that virtual sense of place – connecting to each other.  

I challenge you to take these last few weeks of school and create an experience that students will remember for the rest of their lives.  Connect with them in a new way, connect them with each other…So that 20 years from now, they not only retell all the oddities and historic details, but they describe with fervor the amazing thing they “got to do” or the connection they made or the thing they learned or discovered while distance learning with their math teacher.  

Be well friends!  I look forward to connecting with you (hopefully in person) in the near future 🙂