First Attempt

Over the past week, I've had an opportunity to give my Presentation Wiki a "test run." To recap: for my final project, I created a wiki which is intended to be the basis for presenting a session at the Illinois School Library Media Association fall conference. The wiki introduces the advantages of using wikis in the library, and introduces several Web 2.0 tools that are easy to use with wikis and gives ideas for how librarians might use those tools. A few weeks ago, my district decided to pay any willing staff to create and present "in-house" professional development opportunities. So I offered to teach a 3-session workshop on wikis and using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. The workshops finished today.
I must say that I am very glad to have had an opportunity to debut this presentation before I attempted to give it at a conference! I learned that I need to make sure that I am defining any "techy" terms, and that I shouldn't assume any prior knowledge. At times I was taken aback by my colleagues' lack of computer skills: I taught one person how to take a screen shot, another worried that she wouldn't be able to use Prezi because she "didn't even know how to use PowerPoint" yet. I taught another how to navigate to various drives in order to upload (I have no idea how she uses a digital camera!) to the wiki.
Top three aspects I would change if I were to give this workshop again:

1. Have a handout with all web addresses and log-ins spelled out.


2. Make a separate wiki just for this presentation for faculty...I used the one intended for librarians and although it was nice to debut it, I'd prefer to present something custom-made for the audience.


3. Make more examples/find more examples of student projects.

Top three aspects that I think worked well during this workshop:

1. I taught wiki-use on the first day, then introduced 3 Web 2.0 tools on the second day, and 3 on the third day. This was a good way to break up the sessions. Participants seemed excited to continue.


2. I think the participants appreciated the interactivity. Instead of me describing and showing the tools, I broke them into groups and had them investigate the tools and then report back to the main group. Then, as each group presented, I augmented their remarks with examples from my presentation wiki.


3. Group Brainstorming--after learning about a tool and seeing examples of it in use, we all brainstormed even more ways that we thought that the tool could be used.

Now I want to sit down and think about how I can further improve my presentation for next time, and polish it for its possible use at ISLMA. Overall, I think the workshop was well-received and I enjoyed sharing new ideas with such a receptive crowd. I'll follow up with each of the participants to see if they have further questions and if they use any of the information or tools in class. I'm glad I volunteered to present, and it's always valuable to go back and reflect!