The first presentation is always the hardest...

UPDATED 19/10/12: In terms of my feelings towards the presentation prior to and after the presentation, they were mixed. Beforehand, I'd found out that a number of members of the College's Leadership team were going to be in attendance and I was nervous. Was my presentation going to be good enough for them? Am I going to stuff this up? Not only did I have that to contend with, but with staff signing up to their own snapshot sessions, I was a little nervous about some of the clientele (some had lower ICT skills than I had hoped for) that we were catering for. @_TarrynKennedy assured me that we'd be fine. In the end, I'd decided that there was no point worrying about either points and that I should get on with it. And I did.

As for after, a sense of relief hit me and I was glad that it was over and done with. 7 or 8 tools delivered to a subset of staff within 25 or so minutes. Not bad...maybe I should do this more often...and in saying that, I'm now presenting at #TMMelb/Geelong about Web-based Audience Response Systems on the 20 October. A write-up will go up  in a few days when I get a chance to catch my breath around the notion of the Web-based ARS.

EARLIER: Hello there and welcome back to May the Tech Be With You!

I know it's been a while but I think now is the best time to come back with the return from term break and with something to actually write about.

I finally conducted my first ICT presentation to colleagues at my school on the topic of Web 2.0 tools but more on that later...

For those that don't know, the school I work at is moving to a 1 to 1 notebook/laptop program next year. As part of this massive (for some) transition, school leadership decided that we needed a professional learning day for staff.

The day had the standard professional learning day outline...

• Leadership presented the vision behind the program, and the itinerary for the day  
• The keynote, Alberto Rizzo, spoke for an hour on some challenges in moving to a 1:1 program & the TPCK model
• The one thing that I found I could take from his talk was Explore. Create. Share. Good advice for staff who may be a little worried about integrating more ICT in the classroom.
• We were then talked to about what Professional Learning and the journey that the College has taken in the past few years in developing a professional learning culture.
• Staff then went into an hour long snapshot session of their choice...17 were on offer!

I had the privilege of co-presenting with @_TarrynKennedy. She covered SAMR (the model that allows teachers to gauge what they are doing with tasks, activities and assessment in their classroom...follow up post on this coming soon) while I covered some Web 2.0 tools that could be used to Modify or Redefine classroom interactions with students in a 1 to 1 environment.

I simply like to explore the options I have available to me in order to engage my students. 

To see the my half of the Prezi, simply follow the link...http://prezi.com/mmjeqib1ke1s/web-20-tools

From now to the end of the year, I'll be posting once a week on the tools listed in the presentation. 10 (or so) weeks, 10 posts. Hopefully that satisfies your thirst for tech!

Leave your comments about the presentation below :)

Disclaimer: In no way, shape or form, am I claiming to be an expert on SAMR nor that I am an expert teacher in a 1 to 1 classroom (even though I teach in them more than 60% of the time), nor to be an expert in any of the uses of the tools mentioned in the presentation. I also have no commercial affiliation with any of the companies listed.

As always

May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V