Celebrate Excellence in Education: Nominate Outstanding Educators by April 15!
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Y’all ready for a partay? I am! In fact, I’m packing my bags (yes, red nose and floppy shoes included) in prep for InstructureCarn in Keystone, CO. I was going to ask my buddy Josh (Mr. Coates to you, btw) if he’d share an Uber with me, but then I ‘bumped’ into Beth from #stepsforbeth. Turns out she’s going this year!
A BIT ABOUT BETH
I missed catching up with her last year. For those who don’t know, days before her flight to InstructureCon 2017, she was hit with a super rare (1%) spinal stroke and was paralyzed from the waist down. Although we didn’t connect, I (along with many of my Canvas friends) followed her every step in her heroic journey back to health.
And just recently, she announced:
“Y'all....I got approval!!! Well 2 out of 4 of my medical team and my boss. With restrictions (i.e. wheelchair and must travel with someone who can assist me...family/friends are going to have to draw straws for this one).”
Of course, this made my giant panda heart happy. I first met <Beth> when she joined the Canvas Community in June of 2015. She’s a sharer (like me) and posts all sorts of goodies in the Community. We connected at InstructureCon 2015. I was just chillaxin’ by the tents, feeling all “kumbayawesome,” when (click!) she took this beautiful picture (Snapchat wasn’t really a thing back then).
We’ve been BFFs ever since.
But, I digress.
IT’S STEPPIN’ TIME
In hopes to re-create another memorable photo op with Beth, I will track my #stepsforbeth en route to Instructurecon 2018 (that’s 456.69 miles of dedication!). I’m going to use my paws (and since I have 4 of them, my steps will add up quickly. Sorry, humans) to track each step!
Will you join me?
GIVING YOUR STRIDE A KICK
This year I’ll start tracking my steps in stridekick and I can invite 100 of my Canvas friends to join me, virtually.
Here are the deets:
- Download the stridekick app
- Set up a stridekick account and connect your exercise tracker
- Direct Message my walking buddy and handler @Renee or email community@instructure.com and provide the email address you used to create the account and she’ll invite you (cuz she’s good like that)!
- Accept the invite and start your #stepsforbeth
Can I just say, “I love this community!” (Okay, now I’m going to start crying). But seriously, it’s not just about being Canvas users, but offering up your experiences that end up bringing out your passions, your humanity, and your deep friendships.
See you ‘clowns’ in Keystone!
@kmeeusen , I would argue that you're not doing it right 
Some of my "vintage" Canvas tees are showing the love of many washings. And the elbows are wearing out of my InstCon12 fleece 
Come join the party!
6,186,546 steps
This is what you all have reached, as of yesterday! We'll be ordering the physical therapy machine soon!
When the 6 million step goal was set we were confident reaching it would be a stretch. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised! Looks like it's time for a secondary goal! Twelve million would be just too easy - so let's up our game and shoot for 15 million! If (or I should probably say when) you hit 15 million we'll have a small celebratory surprise for all steppers!
Can I like this more than once? Or do I need to put in a feature request for that? 
I mentioned this on the Twitters, but I thought I'd share it here too. With the disclaimer that I am NOT a programmer, I started playing with the Fitbit dev tools and created a custom clock face for my Versa. Still messing around to get the steps to automatically update, but it makes me stupid happy that I even got this far:
"Good artists copy, great artists steal"
- Matthew Jennings quoting Steve Jobs quoting Picasso.
My #stepsforbeth toward Keystone had me bound,
So far I’ve only walked to Fiddletown;
A visit IRL I’ve never done,
But Scofield’s Cowboy Campfire looks like fun.
