Teacher Jam at Google Chicago!
So we had a Teacher Jam at Google Chicago, and it was awesome. First off, I really want to work somewhere like Google. Their office is amazing - it's super colorful, there are comfy things everywhere, there are bins of snacks and fridges full of smoothies, and there was even a [big] TV hooked up to YouTube in the lounge/kitchen area. They hosted our jam no questions asked, provided catered food [and a caterer, who stayed until like 8:00] instead of the usual pizza and chips, and left us bags of Google swag [I now have a Google water bottle, picture clip, and 1/2 gig flash drive].
The jam part of it also went pretty well - we didn't have a lot of people, but the people who came were super awesome and we ended up getting a fair amount done. One of the attendees is an interactions designer, so we even ended up with some awesome paper prototypes of Activities that we could build. We also managed to acquire some Google employees, and I nearly pulled the caterer into participating too [she thought it was cool as heck and wanted to know all about the laptops, but kept getting distracted by people wanting food].
The jam part of it also went pretty well - we didn't have a lot of people, but the people who came were super awesome and we ended up getting a fair amount done. One of the attendees is an interactions designer, so we even ended up with some awesome paper prototypes of Activities that we could build. We also managed to acquire some Google employees, and I nearly pulled the caterer into participating too [she thought it was cool as heck and wanted to know all about the laptops, but kept getting distracted by people wanting food].