‘Trees, trees, trees.” - Reflections on OTRK12 2014

“What did you see yesterday?”

"Trees. Trees. Trees."

I like exercises like this, I do. Why I haven’t had official homework like this since Mrs. Lee took myself and the rest of my Grade Three class to the Royal Ontario Winter Fair, I’ll never know. I’m guessing that I used to not like these writing exercises, but now ... I realize they are good for reflection and analysis.

Of course, like all good writers, I stole the title of this piece from somewhere. In this case, I stole this from my middle daughter. This was her response to a similar question while we were traveling to Minden, Ontario.

Not PC enough ... sigh

First of all, I have to work on the title of that particular presentation. I’m guessing here, but the the title “The Care and Feeding of an eLearning Teacher: A Case Study” wasn’t something that drove people to see my presentation. I’m thinking something more politically correct and slightly more subversive “How to Nurture Your Inner Connected Educator” or something like that.

After that idea struck me, I broke down the rest of my thoughts into two items: “Things I rocked” and “Things at which I sucked”. Putting first things first:

“Things I rocked”

I like public speaking. I’m good at it. I speak in public well. I also put together a decent presentation. I try and teach my face to face students the evils of PowerPoint karaoke and why putting a lot of text on a screen in front of an audience is a  sin against God and nature.

Sinful. Also, level R.

I also rocked preparation for my presentation. I had more than enough ideas collected from notes I took from my position as eLearning teacher for my Board. My perception of good writing is that simple and powerful images and words work better than complicated and suave. I just don’t do suave. I also had very simple demands of my hardware and my software. What I describe as my “innerware” - my inner script of what I was going to say - was uncomplicated and followed the images I had on the screen.

Not needing the wireless to present was something I’ve learned from being a teacher in a “connected classroom” for 14 years. During my presentation, I called that “Digital Resilience” - the ability to overcome technical issues. For example, neither of my remotes worked - my iPhone or my iPad would not connect to my Macbook for some reason. I concluded years ago that sometimes things just don’t work and you have to keep the lesson looking brilliant, regardless of technical issues. 

I also rocked stealing ideas. I stole ideas from myself, if that is possible, in order to put together what I thought of as a useful presentation. During the day, I grabbed ideas from the presenters I heard and thought about how I could mention their great ideas in my presentation next time and next year.

Finally, I think I rocked talking to fellow participants through “Back channel conversations”, namely Twitter. @Chesmandu was all over the #otrk12 tag on Wednesday and I collected a good number of people to follow, followers and retweets during the day. Like most people, I find the ideas I see there somewhat overwhelming, but a real benefit of events like this.

I rocked having fun, too. 

“Things I at which I sucked”

I did not stay on my calendar. I was sitting having lunch in the room I had just finished presenting in, staying in the after glow of being done, when I had to get out of the way for the next presenter. It happened to be Bev Meglio from the Ministry of Education. I’d been in a workshop with her a few weeks previous and knew that she knew her stuff. I decided then and there that I’d stay and bear witness to her genius in “Making Connections in the Online Classroom” than go somewhere else. I still don’t know what I missed in the presentation I should have gone to, but using Twitter’s search engine, I’m hoping I can make that up.

I sucked at networking face to face and taking a look around me while at the conference. Yes, I did well on social media to meet and speak to people. I did not, however, do as well while walking around the Delta Meadowvale. I think I met and spoke to five or six people all day that way, which was a bit of a let down, to be honest.

I like being a part of things, too. Not networking with the organizers of the event is something that may prevent me from being apart of the “inner circle” for next year’s event. How can I show you I like being a part of that inner circle? Well, I’m a rugby player. But I'm also a rugby coach, a rugby administrator for my club, also for my region and my province. I like being a part of things I like. And ... I like eLearing.

What I was looking for, I guess ...

I also sucked at engaging my audience during and getting feedback from my audience after my presentation. That isn’t to say I didn’t get any. Of the five or six people I met after my presentation, they all said I helped them in specific ways. For example, I had one young man from the Ottawa area that tell me my idea of getting and reading the manual for his chair in order to prevent further back injury, was a real call to him. His co-worker mentioned that she will take my idea of getting up and out of my desk once an hour to heart after today.

Conclusions

I always like taking notes during and after the first time I do anything. To be blunt, I think that helps me make different mistakes the second time I do something. I will be doing this presentation at least one more time, I’ll just make it more engaging and explicitly ask for feedback from my audience. I’ll think of a better title, make sure I look around but keep teaching and learning, too.

Oh, and keep having fun.