Imagine being invited to spend five days learning and celebrating with like-minded professionals in a stimulating setting. Imagine that your every need was considered, transportation arranged, and worthwhile activities planned without cease. Consider long-range mountain views and architectural splendor in a picturesque downtown. Street art, public transportation, and gracious citizens. This was the reality for thirty-four educators and six high school students last week in Calgary Canada at the SMART Exemplary Educator Summit.

Teachers from around the World. Erin from Minnesota, Elisabeth from Austria, myself from North Carolina, Anvi a student from New York, Kevin from Virginia and Carla from South Africa, took on the challenge to reimagine the technology solutions for the processes in education.

SMART Technologies assembled this group to give back to the people who use and help improve their products – educators. The entire organization welcomed us and let us know that they valued our expertise and understanding of their technology. Treated like equal professionals every moment of the day we chatted with marketing and development folks, support staff, and leaders in education from the United States and Canada.

We were graced with a fireside chat hosted by the five top executives at SMART. They answered all of our questions.

We were organized in various groups alternating activities between testing new products, hacking current solutions to improve their functionality, or working through the design process to create technology solutions that would improve the student outcomes of either curriculum, space, processes, or schools. These activities were peppered with speakers on topics ranging from Growth Mindset to Global Education Insights and virtually everything in between. We learned about the Conrad Foundation from their chairman, Nancy Conrad, and heard from this years’ student winners in The Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge. I worked closely with two of these promising young people, Anvi and Philip, and was in awe of their potential. Our learning was practical and immediate, visionary and research based, and non-stop. The best type of professional development ever.

The Developers from our Hackathon Team. There were visible thought clouds above their heads as we worked. Truth.

SMART Technologies covered all bases, met every learning need, and rewarded us tenfold. The relationships that bloomed wove our shared passions with personal interests and once germinated have created opportunities for collaborations for classrooms across the world. SMART demonstrated that they are a company poised for the long haul in educational technology. They stand behind their solutions with evidence that what their products claim to do has been done and is deliverable elsewhere with careful training and both face-to-face and digital support.

SEE Stars Philip Pan, the future and myself, the present and future of global technology innovations to inspire outcomes in every classroom and continent.

Thank you SMART Technologies, Kelly Miksch our talented class mom, Greg Estell, Nicholas Svensson, Jeff Lowe, Christine McGregor, Debra Milmaka Miles and all the other key players who continue to push SMART towards greatness and delivered this opportunity to a group of amazing educators who will take this inspiration into a new year. Onward.

The reception held at Telus Spark‘s, Science center was the perfect final celebration of a great week. Table mates, Concern, South Africa, Nicholas Svensson of SMART, Stella, UK, and Carla, South Africa enjoyed lively conversation regarding what is next for all of us.