So I like so many of us out there have just about had enough of being presented with something on a screen and having it read word for word to me. It is really an insult on my intelligence as I am:
- 34 years old and can read
- Quite well educated (I went to university)
- Easily bored and distracted.
There have been so many occasions when I have been to a seminar or presentation, and the person at the front flashes up a slide full of text and then proceeds to read it word for word off the screen. What are they thinking? Do they think that I can not read? I may be not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I am capable of reading. One of the first things that I said to my kids this year was ‘PowerPoint is evil – use it wisely’. We thought that we had found a solution in Prezi but my employer decided to block it (and rightfully so if the terms and conditions state it is for use by over 18 years) and we were stuck. The reliance of the ‘right click generation’ on Powerpoint is huge and I am constantly trying to steer kids away from using it.
We have a lull in time between genres. At the start of this term, we were working on poetry and it was an outstanding success. Later on this term we will be working on Argumentative Essay writing (which the kids seem to enjoy) and have a period of time at our school where we come up with different genres to explore.
I really wanted to get the kids writing ‘Choose Your Own Adventures’ stories that I used to love as a kid. When I asked the kids if they have ever wrote one, the blank faces staring back at me from my digital natives were concerning. We explored some examples of these stories and the kids started to get into it. Of course they wanted to produce it digitally and I had a brain wave at the exact time as one of my kids.
“Mr Proud – you are always telling us that Powerpoint is evil but couldn’t we use it to create hyperlinks between slides and produce our stories using it?” one of them asked. I thought about it for a minute and stated “Yes that sounds good.” As quick as a flash one of my bright sparks pipped up with “Didn’t you tell us that PowerPoint was evil? You must have been wrong. It can’t be evil if we can use it in this way!” I quickly climbed back into my hole and mumbled something under my breath about being a content creator and get on with your work.
So there you go – my personal journey into this evil land is happening as we speak. I will share some of the examples with you when they are finished. Their planning looks fantastic and they are taking great joy in proving me wrong.
Is PowerPoint evil? Not in this circumstance……..I guess!
Over the past week I attended the outstanding eLearning expo at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. I was lucky enough to be presenting a session with Arlene Smertherst on some work we did on our poetry unit within my classroom which was an outstanding success. The conference ran over two days and due to my family situation it was not possible for me to go down on the Sunday night. I drove from Brisbane to the Gold Coast on Monday morning and left on Tuesday afternoon (before the outstanding closing key note address from Jess Oram and Adrian Greig) and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.
As stated in an earlier blog post, I journeyed into the world of Twitter just over 12 months ago and first heard about this term PLN. It really excited me that I could colloborate with educators from all around the world. Last year I was relatively new to the world of PLN and walked around the conference like a deer in the headlights. Over lunch I didn’t network with anybody but tweeted a whole bunch. As I entered my final session with Shane Roberts and Jonathon Nalder I sheepishly introduced myself and was pleased to find out that they knew who I was and were warm and welcoming. My next experience with ‘face to face’ colloboration was with Joseph Perkins, when I had the oppportunity to go up and visit his 1-1 laptop program. I was also pleased to find that he was a ‘real person’ and not just a figment of my imagination.
I was really jealous that some of my PLN got together on the Sunday night before this years expo and was hoping to meet most of my PLN and made sure that I registered for sessions that some of them were running. Shane came strolling past me early on Monday morning with Kathleen MACCOLL , Tanya SUTTON and Jodie Reik. After the inital introductions, I felt very comfortable and we started talking like old friends. It was actually a really weird experience and one that I enjoyed.
But as the two days progressed a key question entered my mind: was I have a professional learning network experiene or was it a personal learning one? Or was it a combination of them both? I problary am learning towards the second one. I ‘hung out’ with my PLN over breakfeast, lunch and dinner but our converstaions over lunch about learning and pedagogy and it was stimulating and thought provoking. I personally wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Actually I would have. I would have made a firm commitment with my PLN about on ongoing commitment to each other (it sounds like a wedding proposal) and our professional learning journey together. As Tanya put so elequently in her latest blog post, networking allows for so many more fantastic learning and professional experiences to occur.
Just remember people – a colloborative marathon people will go quicker than an isolated 100m sprint!
