Franconia Ridge from summit of Mt. Lafayette
Sunday morning I hiked/ran the length of Franconia Ridge from the Old Bridle Path up Lafayette over to Mt. Flume and down to the Kanc: about 14.5 miles, 4400′ of uphill, 5000′ of downhill in just under 4.5 hours.
I don’t know when I first thought that I’d like to do the entirety of the Ridge in one go, though it’s been something in the back of my mind for a while. Doing it as a run probably didn’t really seem like a possibility until I ran up Flume a few weeks ago. Next, add Garfield to the run for the full N-S traverse? (does Garfield really count for the Ridge since you need to drop down so far just to come back up to Lafayette?). Start at the Kanc and end at 93? (more uphill than down in this direction). Cut my time to under 4 hours? (Not stopping to send obnoxious “Cumbre!” text messages would help, as would doing it without a killer sunburn on my shoulders that made me not want to run parts until the end when I could just carry my bag instead of wearing it). What is a classroom if not a place to learn something about yourself, and what is possible?
Today I was in a lecture hall with 30+ other educators at Harvard learning applications for the iPad in the classroom. This 3-day course will serve as a foundation for the design and implementation of my Modern Global Issues class for the coming year. It will be a 1-1 iPad class, and there are so many possibilities to explore. I don’t know yet what the class will look like, but I have a lot more ideas now than I did 8 hours ago.
The danger of giving highly intelligent people new toys… we revert to our childhood selves.
Two very different classrooms… two very different experiences… tons of learning in each… but I bet you can guess which I prefer.
Last stop at summit of Liberty. Driven to finish under 5 hours at this point, beat that by 33 minutes. Time to rethink what’s possible. Vertical classroom in the background.
Taking the Sharp End 