Seriously! When I was getting together my presentation for ILC on using Technology for Language Development, I was thinking about Gary Stager’s railings against BrainPop and Voice Thread.
Why? He didn’t show up to my presentation, but I did see his, and I have to say he has a very different approach to teaching and learning than I do. Why would I bother doing a presentation to someone I disagree with and disagrees with me? Maybe it’s about being intellectually honest. If I can’t justify using tools like BrainPop (appropriately) and Voice Thread in spite of criticism, then it shouldn’t have a place in my practice.
Now I’m going to segue into my next point, who are you doing your presentation for ultimately, and how do you measure the success of your presentation? There has been a lot of talk about this around after ILC about what a presentation should look like and I’ve been doing a lot of presentations and trainings lately, so this a question worth exploring for me.
Why I think I was successful in my presentation at ILC:
- I accurately billed the session as shown by the fact that almost all of my audience was people who teach or work with English Language Learners or had a (strong) background in that area.
- I walked folks through how what I did fit into the standards and theory, and how I set up the lessons and units, and showed them examples of what my kids did.
- I checked for understanding as we went along.
- I did a few quick demonstrations of how to use the tools, and referred participants to later sessions on “how-to” if that is what they needed. This was a “why” and “how” not a “how-to” session.
- The audience seemed engaged, and was following me as I moved around (which I do a lot, I’m a restless speaker).
- I got some positive feedback, applause from the audience, a comment on my evaluation form, and a later discussion with a CTAP person who used to do presentations at CABE (the pre-eminent professional organization for bi-lingual and English Language Development teachers) was very positive.
Why I could be wrong:
- I have my audience, ELD teachers and Specialist, and that is a solid one to start with, but would say a Math educator with high expectations, and little background in the subject be interested? Dan’s criticism’s seem rightly to be that we please most of the regular attendees at conferences, but maybe we miss the chance to increase the audience by having low-standards. Since my audience was not just edubloggers, I think I’ve already gotten outside the box a bit.
- I don’t think I would have convinced Dr. Stager, just as he hasn’t convinced me that BrainPop is evil, Voice Thread is bad, and posting students’ work in progress is sloppy. Ultimately, he isn’t in my teaching situation, and I’d rather convince folks that are. I hope this doesn’t sound too dismissive.
- I only have one response on my evaluation form, and it’s largely positive (organization was a weak mark at only “Good”). So there could be folks who left saying “meh?”, who applauded out of politeness and relief, instead of pleasure.
Ultimately, it is frustrating doing presentations to meet the “demands” of folks like Dan, and Dr. Stager, who will likely never attend them, but to the degree that Dan is dead-on with his comment to cover what Google can’t, I’ll keep trying 
.
