I've kind-of sort-of been writing the blog posts in order of events, and since I am getting to the end of my 30-blog-post plan, I want to write about the ending event of InstructureCon/InstructureCarn: the carnival itself! It really was a carnival, with rides and food and everything.
I loved it all, especially the performance by the acrobats. That was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen in person, and thanks to a tip from @biray , I got myself a seat right up front, in the second row. The whole performance was fabulous; there were acrobats and jugglers, and also a clown who was so sweet and charming; I'm not even a fan of clowns usually, but this guy was great: his moves, his music, it all was so funny in a way that made you just relax and feel good... which was important as a calm-down interlude between the acrobatics which made me literally hold my breath, especially the acrobat at the end who was performing on impossible stacks of rolling tubes that went higher and higher and higher until I couldn't even believe it anymore... but it was REAL, and I was there. It was incredible! Does anybody know the name of this troupe? I would love to link to their website here if anybody from Instructure has that information. They came out and posed for pictures at the end of the performance, so here is a picture that I took:
I remember during last year's InstructureCon when Credence Clearwater was playing, and I was listening to someone sharing the music remotely just using their phone as I was sitting on my couch at home; even my husband wanted to listen -- he couldn't believe it was CCR for real. Attending InstructureCon this year, I was thinking there would be cool stuff, but that nothing could top something like hearing Credence Clearwater in person... but these acrobats managed to hit the top for me. It was unforgettable, especially the juggler who was on next-to-last before the acrobat who was performing on the rolling tower of tubes. There was just something about that juggler who had me completely mesmerized, and I was thinking, what an incredible skill he has: he could be transported back in time to any culture in any era, and he would dazzle them with what he is able to do. He could probably be transported to alien civilizations on other planets and amaze them with his performance. It was spectacular.
I also have to include here the HUMAN CANNONBALL, which was also unforgettable. When I first showed up at the carnival, I couldn't help but notice the cannon: it was huge! And I asked an older gentleman who was setting it up if they were really going to shoot someone out of the cannon, and he said yes. So I did most of my wandering on that side of the carnival field, knowing that I didn't want to miss this; I had seen Bugs Bunny and other cartoon characters getting shot out of cannons in cartoons... but a real person? in real life? As it turned out, I was standing with snufer right next to the net where he came down. It really was incredible to watch, and people captured it on video with their phones, like this video from admin_mlebsock at Twitter -- I can't embed a Twitter video, but just click on the link to see the video at Twitter.
When I went to write my "introduction post" for my class, this semester it was really cool to be able to include InstructureCon as a what-I-did-this-summer item, and I was able to embed that cannonball video in the blog post, yay! Because I enrolled myself as a student in the class (more about my #TotalCoLearner experiment), that means a lot of students will be reading my introduction post as the semester goes along (the students are all reading each other's introduction posts at random all semester long), so I hope that will add a fun new dimension to their perception of Canvas, and also inspire them to share their thoughts about Canvas with me over the course of the semester, knowing that I really am excited about what Canvas has brought to our school and how important it is to me as a teacher... and as a carnival-goer!
