I always take time to reflect on everything I do. I reflect on teaching ideas, current thoughts, experiments, and presentations.
I have found that the one thing that has helped since I started presenting is to write down my reflections.
For ITEC13 I really struggled to form my thoughts into a proper presentation. I had so many ideas in my head that I could not really establish a flow to my delivery. I did not want to just go through a million ideas with no purpose. I wanted to connect the tools to a much larger idea.
I developed at least 5 slide decks for each presentation and was never really happy with any of them.
Finally, I did what I know how to do best…..
I went to my PLN and started asking for help. I received great insight from many.
Scott McLeod was SUPER AWESOME and talked with me for about a half hour one day that really was the turning point. He helped to guide me to a clearer focus. In many ways I felt like he was in my head because each question he posed lead me to the answer that I knew I had in my head but could not get out.
My slide decks continued to develop late into Sunday night. By the end I developed about 73 slides for one and 82 for the other. When I started both had about 40 slides.
I was fortunate enough to have both sessions full of people. Perhaps it was the clever nerdy titles, but I hope that I delivered and left them happy. I felt blessed to have a crowd.
I tried out several new things.
1. I brought props to show. This was a huge success. Next time I will bring more and do more hands on and get the crowd to use the tools as we go.
2. I used a backchannel. This is something I always wanted to do. This was the most beneficial piece for me. I will never present without this again. It is too valuable.
I was able to generate more help and answer questions online that the 50 minutes did not allow for. It is amazing how fast 50 minutes goes by.
For my first session I went back and created a note guide from the backchannel. You can see an example here – Speedgeeking with Coffeechug.
One of the cool things was feedback about my presentation. You never gain any real feedback about how things go. I felt good about things when I read comments like
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