2018 Reflections: Hey, Where's Adam?

[awilliams]

Hey everybody! Long time no see, or at least it feels that way. I don’t know if you have noticed, but I haven’t been around this wonderful world we call the Canvas Community as much in the past 12 months. Sure, I still bop in from time to time and do my best to keep up with all the notifications from the amazing things ya’ll are doing, but the past year I have been spending the majority of my time in our Bridge Community. 

It is somewhat bittersweet. I miss you all of course, but it has also been a lot of fun learning about Bridge. From the people to the product, I have learned a lot and I still have so much yet to learn. You will be happy to know though, the Canvas/Instructure spirit is alive and strong in Bridge! As we like to say, “from your first day of school to your last day of employment” we will have the software solution to help you teach, learn, and grow. 

Some of my major accomplishments on the learning side of things were building my first courses, checkpoints, and programs, and getting the hang of managing users in Bridge. I even tried out using some authoring tools and exporting SCORM files. After that, I transitioned to using Bridge for my own 1on1 agendas with  @Renee_Carney  and tracking my goals and accomplishments. This transition culminated for me with Project Basecamp, an internal employee professional development activity. I have completed a number of our internal courses and programs as well. I had a Career Drivers conversation with Renee and I call this a big accomplishment because no employer has ever wanted to get to know me on a personal level like this. They always told me what I should be measuring myself on and getting better at. The conversation helped me focus on how I could derive the most joy and success from my career at Instructure, and that information will help Renee know how I tick and what will motivate me to keep improving. 

Over in the Bridge Community I have been hard at work to continue the work replicating what has been successful in the Canvas Community. The feature idea process, Bridge Studio, mirrors what you are used to here and continues to be one of the most active places right along side Q&A. We launched BridgeLIVE this year and we hope to see over time the type of sharing and caring that CanvasLIVE embodies. However, just between you and me, you teachers and education folk in this Community are some of the most open and sharing people I have ever met. It would be hard for anyone to rival the selfless giving of time and knowledge that I have come to know and love from CanvasLIVE and this community of givers. Because all that giving deserves some gamification, we rolled out a badge and point system and added orientation quests to compliment the lessons on using Community. 

This is great time to acknowledge stefaniesanders, who needs no introduction. Not only did Stefanie pioneer most of this work I am continuing in the Bridge Community, she has also been working like a superhero to keep up with all the activity here while I transition to Bridge. I literally have no idea how she does it. She is definitely the person who has made my 2018 accomplishments possible and there is not enough Motivosity (our internal gratitude system) in the world to give her. I have told her I think she is incredible and has a bear trap mind (you wouldn’t believe the things she can remember!), but I have to do it here again. Stefanie, you are the bomb dot com! Special mention to  @Renee_Carney ,  @scottdennis , erinhallmark and the rest of team as well. It has been a little over a year working with all ya’ll now and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else!  @djackson , allifoote, and  @Tami_B , it has been a lot of fun doing Bridge things and I look forward to more. I also will take just a moment and acknowledge Instructure as an organization. This company made a team, work environment, and culture possible that allowed me to deal with some serious life changes in mid 2018. Not just deal with, but it empowered me to get through it better than I could have imagined. Getting through that was a major accomplishment and I am not sure how I could have done it working anywhere else. Kudos and thank you Instructure.

I am super excited and optimistic for 2019! I have everything I will need to accomplish my goals and those goals are attainable and worth accomplishing! Yet, I am also excited for change, opportunity, and things I can’t yet predict but I will enjoy experiencing them when they do arrive nonetheless. I will keep doing my best to check up on things and stay in the loop here. Feel free to create an account in the Bridge Community if you want to see what’s going on there. 

Ciao for now and keep learning!

Banner Image from Pixabay