Day Two with Bill Ferriter - Teaching the iGeneration

Today was a fantastic day!!  It was the second day of my workshop with Bill Ferriter.  First of all, he is awesome!!  If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, GO!!  For me, as a classroom teacher, I am often forced to listen to professional development presenters who are no longer in the classroom.  This guy is still a full-time teacher. I had my doubts, thinking how can he be a full-time teacher AND write awesome books in addition to leading workshops. Those of you who know me, you know that I had to ask!  He works for a year-round school. The year-round schedule allows him to present during breaks.  Wow!   Since he is a full-time teacher, in the classroom, planning lessons, grading papers, and struggling with public school technology; he completely understands the pressures placed on teachers.  One thing I took away from today was to push yourself to the edge of your box.  It is not necessary to develop an entire unit based on a technology tool. Instead, enrich that existing unit with technology!

Today focused on the art of persuasion in verbal and visual presentations. The most important aspect of persuasion is the connection you make with your audience. Whether you use a story, statistics, or a super star; you must connect with your audience. There must be something memorable that sticks out. Throughout the day, we discussed many venues of presentations from PowerPoint sides to blogs to student-created movies.  We also looked at several examples and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the samples. I found that the more simple a presentation was, the better.  Too often, PowerPoint presentations get bogged down with too much information on slides. Keep things simple to make your message clear and memorable.  

flickr.com/photos/55352892

Another very important topic discussed today was Creative Commons. The website, CreativeCommons.org, provides images, music, videos, and other creative free for use as long as you give credit to the creator.  The link for flickr.com/creativecommons was also provided for more images.  Another sweet tool is through Google’s advanced searches.  When doing a Google search, click “Advanceed Search.” At the very bottom, click “Date, usage rights …” to select the option for Creative Commons images. This way, all image results are free for you to use; all you need to do is give credit to the original author.

I am so excited about next week! I can’t wait to introduce my students to the new stuff I learned!!