I am finally sitting on my bed trying to figure out whether the past few days were or were not a dream. I now know that this was one of those situations in which my reality became better than my dreams, because in fact I never imagined that this dream I had was, one, going to come true this fast, and two, was going to be as big as it was.
The story started like this...
In October ´14 I came back from the Google Teacher Academy with one dream, one illusion, one action plan... Bring Google for education to my country, Guatemala. At first I wanted to bring the Google Summit, but I soon realize that my country and its educators can not afford that. I had to find a way to still follow my dream without having that much cost. I then got an email from Rodrigo Vale the Head of Education Outreach Latin America that introduced me to Luis Bolaños and Pixsell and that is when we joined: in the dreams we had in common, in the hard work and the organization of an event. This event we never thought it was going to be as big as it ended up being. In December after a few meetings with Luis I got the news: On February 26, 2015 we were going to host the first EduDay Gt featuring Google.
Very excited, I quickly posted the news to the Mexico Google Teacher Academy community to see who would be willing to help and support us in some degree. As wonderful as these GCT communities are I suddenly had about 6 teachers who said they were interested in participating and helping.
The days went by and I had already 2 GCT´s from Mexico who offered to come to Guatemala, the wonderful Marybell Rodríguez and Jocelyne Perreard and 3 others, also from Mexico and one from Argentina that offered to give virtual sessions through Hangouts (of course), Jackeline Bucio, Omar Raygoza, Pedro Aparicio and Cristina Rodrigues. I was very grateful to see how people were getting more and more excited to participate as presenters. By the end of January I had already 6 international teachers and another 8 from the American School of Guatemala that had also offered me their support and present at EduDayGt. Luis on his side had also connected with other great educators from Pixsell, URL, UMG, Colegio Interamericano and 2 other great GCT´s, Lisa Parisi who also accepted the invitation to come to Guatemala and Emily Roth, Luis´ wife who was going to have a virtual session from Malaysia.
The University Mariano Galvez(UMG) and TEC de Guatemala were the main sponsors and big supporters of this event. UMG has a wonderful campus with the equipment and all the tools necessary to make this event a reality.
Both Luis (and his Pixsell team, Otto, Luis) and I were working hard to make this a big success. We sent emails (hundreds of them).
We got support images with the hashtag #EduDayGT. We posted on Social Networks about it, We got calls and emails about people who wanted to attend. We worked on schedules, on the content to present. We created forms, documents, spreadsheets…. We collaborated! We were even invited to go to a radio program to talk about my experience about being a GCT and to promote the event.
UMG staff were working just as hard with all the logistics to make sure we had everything we needed; from parking to transportation, from classrooms to internet, from name tags to lunches. The main reason of why this event was a smashing success was due to the magnificent teamwork we had.
Almost three weeks before the event we had reached the limit of participants, 250. All of a sudden it got super popular among educators in Guatemala and everyone wanted to come. We got phone calls, emails, messages to let them register. UMG said the maximum number of participants was 350 and we left it at that.
The week of the event came and we already had a Google Site with all the information, plane tickets, hotel reservations, transportation, all the speakers ready, all the workshops´ descriptions, schedules, logistic details, etc. everything was taking shape. We were all very nervous, but mostly euphoric about it. I met Joseph Tanpoco, the CEO of Pixsell, who was very proud to be in Guatemala to witness this wonderful event. Three days later, Lisa, Marybell and Jocelyne came to Guatemala and that is when my dreams started to come to a reality.
That date that we had mentioned, written and talked about many times February 26 , finally came.
Pixsell, UMG, TEC Guatemala and CAG, all teams were early there, ready to start, putting together the last details and by 8 am we all walked to Aula Magna, where the Welcome keynote was going to take place. A big line of educators were waiting outside to complete the registration and to start connecting with other educators, excited to learn new things and challenge themselves to try new technologies,all with the commitment to improve Guatemala´s education.
The wonderful Lisa Parisi started with a welcome keynote which inspired us to use technology to connect globally, this was a great way to kickoff. There was a coffee break right after which gave the opportunity to all educators to start connecting and networking.
The first block of 10 sessions started and all the rooms filled quickly with educators full of excitement, thirst of learning, commitment for teaching and challenges to face. Everyone was posting on Google+, Facebook and Twitter about the event all using the hashtag #EduDayGt and that´s how we started this great community.
The second block started and some of our organization team members told me how happy they saw everyone, that the virtual session worked great, that everything was smooth and running without any problem. I could not stop jumping and running around! I was too excited to sit still. And that is when they told me that we had gone way past our limit, because there were 471 educators who came, from all over the country! Retalhuleu, Patzún, Región Ixil, etc
Lunch time came and I was super excited to see people connecting, sharing what they had learned, asking questions, sharing their contacts and ready to continue learning. This was a great opportunity for everyone to come to an international quality event for free. I could not be more thankful to the UMG team who went above and beyond with every single tiny detail to make things work; with the Pixsell team who was the main motor of all of this. And with all the speakers who, of course, without them none of this would have been possible.
The other 2 blocks of sessions went just as smooth as the 2 first ones. I presented in both and was very delighted by people´s response to all I had to share with them.
The end was approaching, we all walked to the Aula Magna again for the closing keynote by Marybell Rodriguez who shined when speaking and inspiring all the attendants.
The event ended with some thankful words from Joseph Tanpoco and a raffle of t-shirts and a chromebook about the event. Joseph mentioned with a trembling voice full of excitement that Guatemala was the first country where he witnessed so much eagerness and motivation for education. He also announced that EduDay Gt was going to happen again in 6 months and that they were going to bring Google - I got the chills when he said that and I heard everyone cheering about it, it proved how thirsty of these events are the people in our country.
I did not know how to feel after such a celebration of Education, I had so much adrenaline and a mix of emotions. I was just too ecstatic that we had made it! It was a mission accomplished! I was so proud that all the hard work had paid off! Some asked me: so now what?! What is your next step? I honestly did not have an answer for that question as I never thought we were going to go that far, and that is how I responded, but I also said: I know that this is just the beginning, because “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”, and this one was one heck of a first step.
Special thanks to:
Luis Bolaños, Joseph Tanpoco, Otto García, Mario Estuardo Ramos from Pixsell
Ing. Alvaro Torres, Paulo Castro, Pablo Barrios and all the wonderful UMG team
Maria Zaghi and TEC Guatemala
Lisa Parisi
Marybell Rodríguez
Jocelyne Perreard
All the GCT´s that supported us with virtual sessions: Emily Roth, Cristina Rodrigues, Jackeline Bucio, Omar Raygoza y Pedro Aparicio.
All the speakers from the American School of Guatemala: Claudia Estrada, Brian Chalmers, Teté de Chacón, Lara Alemán, Martha de Galindo, Estuardo Guardia, Myrna Molina, David Deeds.
Speakers from Colegio Interamericano: Ken Davis and Victor Ramírez.
Other speakers: Nelson Osorio, Selvin Osorio, Magda Calderon, Rodolfo Castillo, Emerson Chajon
All the others who helped with logistics that I did not get a chance to meet (therefore I can not recall their names to write them here)
ALL WHO PARTICIPATED and help make this dream a reality!
