PLAYDATE L. A.

“… so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.” — Norton Juster.

I know I have quoted Norton Juster before, but this line seems particularly apt here. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing four months work come spectacularly to fruition. Had I thought about it beforehand, I might never have started, but I am so glad I did.

PLAYDATE Los Angeles started as a school project. I am enrolled in the Innovative Educator Advanced Studies Certificate program run by Computer-Using Educators (CUE) in association with Fresno Pacific University. The program requires that participants create a public-facing, innovative, professional project that will impact education on a wider scale. At about the same time that I was deciding what to do for my project, I read about PLAYDATE Chicago. It sounded interesting, so I asked if I could do something similar for my project.

Once I received the approval for PLAYDATE L. A., panic began to set in. What had I agreed to do? I had only been to one educational conference and never put on a similar event in my life. Was I crazy?

Perhaps, although in retrospect I prefer to think of myself as fearless. In any case, once I had taken on this (probably impossible) task, I knew I had to figure out how to do it right. I spoke to my friend Jennifer Peyrot, who immediately signed on to help me. The next week, we went to a CoffeeCue, an informal meet-up of educators, where I met Moss Pike and Ryan Bradford, both of whom also agreed to help. Now I had a team. Things were going well.

Fast forward a month or so, and Alice Chen and Chris Long stepped forward to help. I had never met either one of them except through Twitter (the power of a personal learning network never ceases to amaze me) and they each brought with them a formidable set of talents and experiences. The team was complete. The serious work was about to start.

We met in person and online regularly to plan and organize PLAYDATE L. A., finding sponsors, visiting possible venues, organizing sessions, designing the website, and a performing a myriad of other tasks. When the big day arrived, I knew we were ready, but I had heard that there was typically a high rate of no-shows, as much as 50% at events like this. I was concerned that nobody would come.

I was wrong. Blissfully so. We had close to our hoped-for attendance of 150 eager educators, ready to play with technology and collaborate to discover how they could use it to improve their practice. People came from San Diego, Ventura, Riverside, and other far away, exotic locales. I particularly enjoyed meeting so many people I had only interacted with online, including my co-organizer Chris, whom I met for the first time the morning of the event. Everyone I looked I saw people who were happy, making new connections, and learning. It was wonderful.

Of course, there were some tech fails (the hoped-for live stream of the final play off didn’t happen), but overall the event was a huge success. Were there things we should have done differently? Undoubtedly. Were there things we could have done better? Certainly. Are we going to do it all again next year? Absolutely.

It’s a good thing I didn’t know it was impossible when I started.