I am a HUGE fan.....

Last week I had the opportunity to go to a huge Education Technology conference, NECC, that was luckily held in DC (literally 5 blocks away from me) this year.  I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of stuff going on at first but quickly got my bearings and learned about some great programs out there, many of them FREE!!!  

The best day was by far, the last day.  I was walking around the massive expo and saw that Peter Reynolds (author of The Dot & Ish) had a really great animation program, Animation-ish, for people to test out.  I jumped at the opportunity to try it out which got me talking to some of "his people" and they told me that he was actually walking around the convention center.  Now I know I am a bit on the old side to be acting like a teeny bopper but I have to confess that it was difficult suppressing the teeny bopper inside me that wanted scream out loud "OMG Peter Reynolds is HERE! 

You mean THE Peter Reynolds!".  I quickly got on my cell phone to call my librarian friend, Amy, who shares a healthy admiration of Mr. Reynolds work with me.   Now here is the part where I have to preface this with the fact that both Amy and I, months before hand, had already been talking about joining forces in getting Mr. Reynolds to come and visit our school.   She met up with me at the Fable Vision booth and we started to work our "magic".  It ended up being quite a small world.   Amy happened to have gone to the same school Mr. Reynolds manager, Bill, had taught at.  Needless to say Amy and I were ecstatic that we had an "in".   We had a great conversation with Bill, but despite the fact that it was a bit lengthy, Mr. Reynolds didn't show up.  We distracted ourselves walking around the rest of the expo, trying with failed attempts to win any type of prizes.  We decided to go back and see if the famous Peter Reynolds would finally be at his post.  SUCCESS!! We got to see him do a demonstration of his Animation-ish product AND chat with him a little AND took a picture with him (the one above- I know I look like I might kill him... don't know why, I was super excited!!).  He was even kind enough to create some cute drawings on our convention badges.  

The bestest (I know this isn't a word but thought it should be) part of the whole encounter was at the end when Peter Reynolds himself saw how star struck I was and signed his book The Dot and gave it to me for my library!!! 

I was totally beside myself.  No one else got a book signed just ME!  I walked around the rest of the day with the biggest smile on my face,  literally ear to ear.  

Ok now I have feel the need to promote everything Peter Reynolds.  Not only do I think he is such a down to earth, nice person, I totally LOVE his work.  Everything he does I think it so brilliant and what makes it even better is that I can use it in my art room with my little guys.  If you haven't already clicked on the links throughout this blog I highly recommend seeing his website and his company's, Fable Vision, site.  His books are great with the best morals and his animation program lets everyone, young (and I mean really young) and old be able to animate.   Check out his stuff! I promise you won't regret it :)

Hope everyone at one point has had a good teeny bopper moment like mine, hehe.

take care mucho,

- Natalie