Want to know a secret?  A deep, dark secret that I’ve kept off this blog for over a year now?  One that will shock you?

Well, too bad.  I’m going to tell you anyway.

Ready?

Here I go …

I’m not a part of my school’s Art Department.

Yeah, that shocks me, too.  Here’s a guy whose screen name on an umptillion of Web 2.0 sites is “The Art Guy,” who may or may not have been the first art teacher podcaster (at the time I started I couldn’t find another one … that’s far from the case now of course), who isn’t even a part of his own school’s Art Department.

How’d THAT happen?

It’s a bureaucratic issue, to be honest.  I teach in a computer lab in a K-8 Arts Academy.  If it was a high school, I’d be a Computer Graphics teacher.  Unfortunately there is no course number for such a class in middle school, let alone elementary.

Instead, I teach a class called Technology Concepts.  It’s a fun class to teach, if you’re as geeky as I am, but it’s not inherently an art course.  Therefore, I  have no reason (on paper, at least), to be a part of the Art Department.  Instead, I’m a part of the Enrichment Department.

It’s not so bad…

I recently was chatting online with a former coworker from a previous school, and she lamented my change of departments.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “You’re far too talented to not be teaching art!”

At that point I puffed out my chest and my head swelled with pride – and not just because she said I had talent.

“Oh, I’m still teaching art.  Do you honestly think I could stop teaching art if I tried?”

Of course she could not.

I’m an art teacher. I teach art.

Your definitions may vary, but in my book, ART is anything that involves creativity  I don’t care if it’s a painting, story, play, song, dance, or program.  An ARTIST is anyone who creates art, and an ART TEACHER is anyone who teaches students how to be artists.

I’m a teacher at a Creative & Performing Arts Academy.  Whatever subject is taught by any teacher, they had darned well better be teaching art as well or they don’t belong there.

Math is art.

Science is art.

Social studies is art.

Reading/Language Arts is art to the point that the R/LA Department should be part of the Art Department as well!

Conclusion

Does it sting a bit to know I’m not part of a department named for my degree and certification?  Yes, yes it does.  But it doesn’t change what I teach.

Art is universal.  Only the styles and media change.

And I’m an art teacher.

No, no that’s not true.  For me, School started several weeks ago when I came in during the Summer to put my lab back together.  (The custodial staff needed me to break it down so they could move the desks and wax my floors.)

I found out only recently that many of the students I had last year will also be returning.  I met this news with mixed feelings.  First, I had some awesome kids last year.  There was more than one time that I took student work to my principal and said “This is why I need majors.”  Seriously, we’re an Arts Academy.  We have dance, drama, visual art, chorus, media production, band, AND orchestra majors – why not computer graphics, too?

That may happen in the future, but for now the red tape is in the way.

Unfortunately, for every student who was absolutely thrilled to have my class there was another who was only there because the Guidance dept. needed to give them an elective.

I don’t fault students for not being thrilled with technology.  It’s my passion, it doesn’t have to be everyone’s.  I was, however, concerned about credit.  There have been two other occasions where I’ve had students put in a class after they had already earned credit.  In one case discipline problems were a concern.

But then again, I’ve been assured that if the students couldn’t get credit for taking Technology Concepts a second time the scheduling software wouldn’t have let them into my class.

And it’s not like I’m teaching all the same lessons again, either.  As technology and my own skill sets evolve, so do the projects I assign.  Granted, some lessons will be repeated – every class starts with students using PowerPoint to introduce themselves to the class – but others were already on the chopping block not because they were old news to the students (I didn’t know I’d have returning students yet), but because they were old news to me.

The media we use will still be the same.  Students will still create animations, avatars, wallpapers, posters, and more.  I don’t think I’m wrong for repeating those things so long as there’s something new about them.  After all, I doubt the chorus majors will be saying “But we sang songs LAST year!”

I just have to keep things interesting, but you know what?

I think I just might be able to do that.

The photo above is the front wall of my school.  On the day I stopped by to interview for my position (one of the best career choices I ever made, in my honest opinion), I saw this wall and thought “If I was a few decades younger, I’d try climbing that.”

Indeed, with all of those bricks pushed away from the flat surface, this wall was full of hand holds and toe holds.  Perfect for climbing, except for the concrete and asphalt below you.

No, I never tried to climb that wall.  After a childhood accident where I fell off a porch railing and broke a wrist I decided not to climb things where I could severely hurt myself.  (I did later go cliff diving – repeatedly – but water landings aren’t so bad.)

Flash forward to our school’s end-of-the-year field day celebration.  A couple enterprising students looked at that wall and had the same thoughts I had – without the “Oh, we could probably really hurt ourselves” thoughts to go with them.

Fortunately these students were far from unsupervised, and stern words and looks managed to stop them before they got more than a couple feet off the ground.

So what does this have to do with education?

Everything.

My experience kept me from climbing that wall, and my experience kept those students from doing the same.  They hadn’t yet learned that the benefit of climbing that wall (“Look how high I am!” “Look what I can do!”) was overshadowed by the drawback of a potential injury.

Switch gears to a Kindergarten classroom, where the teacher has decided not to let her kids use oil pastels because the benefits of learning a new media do not (in his or her mind) outweigh the drawbacks of potential hard to clean messes.

Switch again to a classroom where students are not allowed to create blogs because the perceived risks (Do I have to list them?) don’t outweigh the perceived benefits.

I’ve seen many teachers, administrators, and parents that thought of climbing a brick wall with no safety gear in the same light as student blogging, cell phones in schools, oil pastels in Kindergarten, or even letting special needs students use scissors.

What’s the difference?

The difference is that we as teachers would be fools to ignore taking proper precautions before a learning activity.

I’ve blogged about this before.

I argue that it’s not the same thing if we keep safety in mind.  Let the Kindergarten students use oil pastels after setting out “placemats” (newspaper works fine) and reminding them that when a color is done it goes back in the box.  Let students blog in a moderated setting, perhaps even in a “walled garden” environment where only the students, school employees, and parents can see what’s being said.

When a student wants to climb a wall, for goodness’ sake give them a helmet, safety line, and something soft to land on.

Then cheer with them when they see how high they can go.

The last time I attended a session on using games in education I was under whelmed, but I think that was more from the presenter than the subject.  I am cautiously optimistic.

• First paper handout I’ve seen this conference.  Printed PowerPoint slides.
• “Let’s start with your Door Prize!  … I left it at home.”  It was cards for a contest for a game called “Legend of Zork.”
• In games the teacher is the guide and students learn through exploration.
• “Mirrors how humans think and how the mind works.”
• His slides are walls of text.  I don’t think it’s hurting his presentation too much though.  He’s not just reading the slides, and paging through the handout shows that these are just to front-load background information.
• Gaming appeals to multiple intelligences. (Yay, Gardner!)
• “Teaches without its main purpose as teaching.”
• Can be used to train in low-risk environments. Military, Aviation, Medical, Financial, and so on.
• Motivation, Instructional Strategy, Closure, Assessment, Review, Reteach.
• Current slide is showing the cover of GTA4 (very violent, not for kids) and the hunting scene from Oregon Trail (with LOTS of dead animals).
• Gaming DOES NOT EQUAL babysitting.  (Same deal with TV, movies, Discovery Education Streaming, etc. – It needs a purpose!)
• “The teacher has to be there to guide and direct.”
• Use careful and deliberate search terms to find high quality educational games.
• Showing a sample game on composting from http://bravekidgames.com/
• Lore of the Labyrinth from Thinkport.  I think I’ve seen this game presented at this conference before.  It teaches math but not in a dry style.
• http://shodor.org/activities/ for High School students.
• Quia – pay to make games but play them for free.  I’ve toyed with this before.  They have a free trial.
• Thinkfinity.org – Engineering
• Showing data concerning gaming activity.  Students did not just enjoy it, they also spent more time engaged in the lesson.
• “I’m not saying it should always be used, I’m saying it’s a good tool and at least as effective as other strategies.”

• Honestly, could anyone who knows me expect me to attend any other session?  It’s Art! It’s Technology! This is what I do.
• Demonstrating Voicethread used to teach a lesson on drawing a human face.
• “At this point they haven’t thrown me out.” Said RE: How many Voicethread pages she has.
• 5th graders drew self portraits then turned them into contour line drawings and learned about Andy Worhol.
• “Why do you think we need to do this in contour?”
• They reproduced their drawings on the computer.  No scanning or photography?  Would be nice to have the time for that.  In my case I may have to use something like this to digitise student work.
• Showing Art Content Standards.  Yes, this is an art lesson!  It’s not just token “Let’s color something and say we did art!”
• Showing lots of Pop Art.  Comment about how things that Warhol thought were important are not recognised by today’s kids.  Interesting snapshots of the culture at the time.
• So apparently Voicethread lets you record video with your voice.  That could be helpful for students who are ESOL or have certain disabilities.  Seeing someone’s lips move as they talk can certainly help to aid comprehension in some cases.  (It helped me in college, especially with some professors who had strong accents.)
• A cow is used to signal clean-up time.  Students expect it and are used to the routine.  Makes me wonder how I might implement a similar strategy – perhaps with a school mascot?
• Students used the paint brush tool in Pixie to redraw their line drawings.
• Copy/paste used to get 4 identical panels, then the panels were colored separately with the paint bucket.  (Watch out for cracks!  The colors will leak through!)
• While this was done with Pixie, I see how this could be done with other art programs.  GIMP, SUMOPaint, TuxPaint, Frames, even!  … Am I starting to sound like a broken record?
• “Zoho” used to embed art on a site for parents to see progress.
• Showing an example made starting with a photo.  Apparently the photo needs to be “glued” to keep it from fading.  I imagine layer settings could protect it in GIMP/Photoshop/SUMOPaint.
• “Photoshop is a little advanced for 5th grade.”  Not if my 3rd graders are making vector graphics in Frames.  Give me a day or two and they can do it.
• A conference is not worthwhile if you don’t find something you can take with you and use the next school day.  This presentation is all I need for MSET to be worth it, and it’s only the 2nd session!  Can we say this is an awesome conference? Yes we can!

This is possibly one of the smallest rooms I’ve ever been in, and there are few if any empty chairs.  Meanwhile the walls are doing little to block out the noise of convention center staff moving things around.  Nevertheless, the show must go on.

• Created her first animation using Layers in Photoshop, but her school didn’t have Photoshop.
• Switched to placing images in PowerPoint.
• Suggests PlayDoh for claymation.  If the lesson takes a while the PlayDoh can dry out, even with sealing it regularly though.  Parafin based clays can be purchased at craft stores and never dry out.
• Make sure slides are imported in order – some programs have a fit and put slide 10 in front of slide 2 because 1 is more than 2, right?  Watch for that.
• Still suggesting Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  On a shoestring budget I’ll use GIMP.org or SUMOPaint.com.
• Images not in the rectangle for a PowerPoint slide will not show up.  GREAT way to organise elements that will be moving in or out of the frame later.
• “Insert -> Duplicate Slide, then move something.” Repeat ad nausium, but it WORKS and students can understand it.
• What’s also good about this is if students make the switch to Frames these skills should carry over.  Frames is more powerful than PowerPoint but PowerPoint will get the job done with most of the tools you need.
• PowerPoint 2008 no longer supports photo editing?  Ugh, didn’t they learn when Apple cut features out of iMovie?  Hm, apparently they did but they learned the wrong lesson.
• Word Art to make titles for your animation – more flexibility than using the built in title generator in iMovie or MovieMaker.
• “Save As -> Select JPEG.”  Check “Save All” and change the name to prevent overwriting.  A simple “ver1,ver2, ver3″ is enough.
• “Save often.”  Good advice for almost any lesson.
• When you import your slides in set the timing for as short as possible and turn Ken Burns Effect off!  Honestly, that effect is overused and makes your animation into an earthquake simulation.
• You don’t need to use clip art – you can draw things with Autoshapes, also.
• Animations imported into PowerPoint will not be animated when exported as JPEG files.  Don’t bother playing with transitions in PowerPoint.
• “Do we have enough time?” We have 20 minutes left.  She breezed through.
• The video she’s showing is very amusing and a mix of live action and animation.
• Did she just call GIMP “Free shareware?”  She did.  It’s not shareware.  It’s just free.

I thought it was worth tweeting, and apparently I think it’s worth a blog post as well because here we are.

On the surface it’s a very upbeat video.  “I can do this!”  “You can do this!”  The part that’s left out is the part that belongs to the viewer.

Each of us brings to every new experience all of our baggage.  Our previous education, experiences, likes, dislikes, and so on all flavor how we react to something new.  This can make us more or less inclined to enjoy the new things we encounter.

Having grown up with the idea of a particular type of vampire, for example, I am less inclined to enjoy the concept of vampires introduced in a certain popular series of books and movies.  (I still maintain that Vampire + Sunlight = Charcoal.  Glitter is not in the equation.)

A student introduced to a certain author or story genre in an academic setting may become soured towards those things if they dislike that classroom environment.

A teacher may avoid technology integration in their classroom if the examples they see implemented are too complex to understand, require too much additional work to pull off, or (in a worst case scenario) involve someone getting punished in some way for implementing the integration incorrectly.

And I begin to get to my point.

When I was a traveling visual arts teacher, I enjoyed the fact that I was not only demonstrating easy ways to integrate the arts but also easy ways to integrate technology. Slideshows, DE Streaming, audio, video, document cameras, and more were thrown in whenever I could do it quickly and easily.  In some cases I – the itinerant – was using equipment that the teachers based in those buildings never touched, because they didn’t know it was there or didn’t think it would be better than the old way of doing things.

Now that I am in the same computer lab for the entire day I’m actually much more isolated than I was before, but I can still get a sense of what’s going on.  Now, as before, I enter classrooms to see computers collecting dust or surrounded by enough books and boxes to make it obvious they haven’t been used in a while.  I see SMART Boards and document cameras pushed aside in the corner of a room.  I see LCD projectors that have been used more often to show movies during indoor recess than to actively engage students in learning activities.

On the other hand, there are also plenty of teachers in my building that enjoy using their SMART Boards on a daily basis and are having their students use them, too.  There are teachers that encourage their students to use online resources both in and outside of the classroom.  There are teachers that frantically contact me when their LCD projectors are not working properly, because their lessons depend on them.  There are teachers coming to me and asking for advice on how to get their students blogging, how to create online quizzes, and how to have students submit assignments digitally.  And the number of teachers who are like this is growing.

Why?  Because the teachers in my building are sharing with each other.  They attend their collaborative planning meetings every week and talk about how useful these tools are, and the other teachers decide to give it a try for themselves.

No one day professional development session that I’ve seen will make as much of a difference as one impassioned person who likes to show off what they can do with these awesome tools on a frequent basis.  They are enough to get others to try it, and from there it spreads exponentially.

This is a far cry from a former principal of mine (whom I will not name) who attended a MICCA (now MSET) conference only to say “It’s a shame we can’t do any of that here.”  (As someone who has presented at MICCA for years on what I’d been doing with my own classes I wondered what sessions she attended.)

So what are you doing?  Are you trying new things? Bragging about what works? Trying to fix what doesn’t work?  Showing others how the costs of integration are far outweighed by the benefits?  If you’re not letting others know how technology works for you, you’re not doing enough to help the next generation.

We all bring our prior experiences with us.  At your next collaborative planning, bring some good ones.

Definition

Phishing involves tricking people into lowering their guard and giving up something.  It could be a Twitter account info or your online bank login.  Whatever it is, the phisher has conned you into doing something.

That’s right, the people who do phishing scams are con artists.  Only instead of convincing your grandmother to invest your inheritance in a nonexistent company they’re convincing hundreds (or thousands) of people to type their PayPal information into a site that looks just like PayPal … only it isn’t.  Phishing isn’t one guy with a pole, hook, and a worm, it’s a fleet of ships with nets that stretch for miles.

And once you get phished, in most cases you unwittingly join that fleet.  Compromised Twitter accounts send out messages to other people encouraging them to go to the same sites and enter the same information that doomed them.  The same behavior can be seen in email and even online video games like World of Warcraft.

Oh, and phishing is NOT hacking.  I’ve a friend or two that foam at the mouth when they hear the words used interchangeably, so this paragraph is for them.  In some cases I’ve heard it called “social hacking,” which is at the same time a better and worse description of what’s taking place.  There is no teenager with more piercings than a pincushion hanging out in his mom’s basement typing zeroes and ones into a terminal to get into your Facebook account.  More likely it’s someone with ties to organized crime thinking up emails that would convince your mother that her bank has asked her to log in and verify her identity.

Prevention

I’ve divided anti-phishing techniques into three categories: Hardware, Software, and Social.

Social

Biggest category first.  Get the best hardware and software together and someone can still convince my mother to disable all the safeguards and let in the troublemakers.  Sorry, Mom.  I love you, but it’s true.

1. Trust nobody. Just because the email header says its from your best friend does not mean they wrote it.  Just because your sister sent you a Direct Message in Twitter does not mean she found a picture of you that will require you to log into Twitter – again.  Email headers have been getting spoofed for years, and anyone who has been successfully phished will usually have their compromised account sending out the same message that tricked them to all their friends/followers/contacts.  When in doubt, contact them through another media and ask them if they really sent you that message.

2. Look at links. PayPal’s web address is “PayPal.com,” not “PayPaI.com.”  Look the same?  One ends in a lower case “L” while the other ends in an upper case “i.”  You’ll also find wider variations like “Paypal.ohcomeonyoucantrustusreally.com”  Replace PayPal with essentially any web based service you can possibly think of.  The more popular it is, the more likely someone out there has made a phishing scam for it.

Why does this matter?  If you go to the wrong address and enter your login and password, you’re not actually logging in.  You’re giving your information to the scammer.  Now they’re logging in as you and doing whatever they want – usually by changing your password first.

3. If you can’t find it after typing the site address in manually and logging in, then it isn’t true either. This relates to #2.  I’m constantly getting emails telling me my PayPal account has been compromised and I need to click on a link in the email and verify my settings or I will lose everything oh no!  (Of course I don’t have a PayPal account so I wasn’t phased by this at all, but plenty of others do.)  If you get an email like that for any service and you think it MIGHT be legitimate, type the web address in by hand.  In this example, I would go to PayPal.com and log in.  If I can’t find the same notice on that site, then I just avoided getting phished.

4. If it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.  You did not win the lottery in London.  (Protip: you have to buy a ticket first.)  No one in Nigeria wants you to help funnel money out of their Country.  Blizzard is not giving out exclusive in-game mounts to select World of Warcraft players.  I’ve had people trying to scam me with each of these.  Report them if you have that option, delete and forget the messages if you don’t.

5. Change your password – often.  This won’t exactly prevent phishing but it’s a good security tip nonetheless so I’m throwing it in here.  While you’re at it, make it a password that’s hard to guess.  “12345,” “qwerty,” the name or birthday of someone close to you, and (for the love of all that is holy please not this one) “password” are all horrible passwords and should never be used.

Software

There really isn’t any software that will 100% prevent you from getting phished.  There IS, however, software that will lessen the blow should you happen to get tricked.

1. Firefox.  If you’re running a Windows based computer, there are some things you just have to use Internet Explorer for.  At work, I use IE to add networked printers to the computers in my building and install certain software packages.

For everything else, use Firefox.  It is more secure than Internet Explorer has ever been and when security holes ARE found they get fixed FAST.  I’ve heard some people tell me how slick Google’s Chrome browser is, but it still doesn’t compete with Firefox for security.

2. NoScript.  Firefox is awesome in part because it allows you to install different addons to give you different features that aren’t available out of the box.  I’m not too crazy about installing every useful addon I find, but I simply LOVE NoScript.  In a nutshell, it blocks all javascript, java, cookies, flash, and anything else that can potentially be used to compromise your system.  You can add sites that you trust to NoScript’s white list of allowed URLs to enable things from those domains on a permanent or temporary basis as you see fit, so sites broken by having their flash based content blocked won’t stay broken if you really need to see that dancing monkey.

As an extra bonus: By its very nature, NoScript blocks the more annoying ads that you see on various web sites.

3.  Antivirus.  Find a good one and keep it updated.  Do not install any “antivirus” that you see in a pop-up ad, as many of those are in fact spyware.

Also, only use ONE antivirus.  Antivirus programs have recognized each other as viruses in the past.  You don’t want them trying to remove each other on you.

4. Anti-Spyware Same as Antivirus except Spyware programs will often play nice with each other.  Get at least two and run scans frequently.  Many phishing sites will attempt to install keyloggers on your computer.  These particular spyware programs will remember everything you type (as in – your passwords) and send that information back home.  Countless people have been phished once and recovered just in time to have another account compromised because the first attempt opened up a back door.  A good anti-spyware program can help prevent that.  AVG is free and not bad, and Microsoft has released their own as well.

5. Another OS.  Most of the world may run on Windows, but that doesn’t mean WE have to.  Linux and Mac OS X are both operating systems that are frequently ignored by people who write spyware and/or viruses.  Using them isn’t a substitute for paying attention to the things under the “Social” section, but it DOES add an additional layer of protection.  Linux is often free and can run off of something as simple as a thumb drive, so if you’re curious you may want to download a version and try it out with no risk whatsoever.  Currently Ubuntu is one of the more popular flavors of Linux – I have a whole post about that brewing for later.

Hardware

I saved this one for last because there’s not a lot to it.  People have ignored these facets for years and still avoided phishing attempts.  That being said, I think both points in this section are at the very least worth consideration.

1. Get an authenticator.  These devices are not widely used yet, but they add a layer of complexity to logging in to services that most phishing scams have yet to take into account.  World of Warcraft – arguably one of the most popular video games ever – has been publicizing its authenticator for some time now.  Other services, like PayPal, are compatible with authenticators as well.  This episode of the Security Now podcast is a little dated, but offers a decent description of how they work.

2. Get a Mac.  I’m not going to set myself up for a fall by saying Macs are invincible.  Any time something is made to be foolproof someone goes and builds a better fool, after all.  However, as Macs are a much smaller portion of the market they tend to be overlooked by some aspects of phishing scams.  Spyware made to run on a Windows machine is not going to run on my Mac.  Does this make me safe?  No.  Does this make me safer than if I used a computer running Windows?  Potentially yes.

Security should not be your only incentive for getting a Mac, but if you’re already thinking about it this is something that could be an additional point in Mac’s favor.

I’m really liking Frames.  My previous animations have all been compiled in iMovie or (against my will) MovieMaker.  Those programs work, and are often pre-installed on computers, but Frames was designed specifically for stop-motion animation.  Most of the concerns I had going in were resolved in an “Oh, so it can do that” way, followed by an “Oh, you mean it can also do this?!” moment.

I’d write more about it, but I have to go back to playing … er, I mean learning how to use this software.

(Oh, and if you liked the music, Bre Pettis made it.)

So I submitted a proposal for this year’s MICCA MSET conference, and since I’m under the delusion that I might actually have my proposal accepted I’m researching even more web based tools that could be used to enhance classroom instruction.  This is one of them.

I withhold my opinion on it until I’ve had a chance to kick the tires a bit, and I’d like your help with that if possible.

So go ahead.

Ask me anything.

That being said, here’s some things that I’ve encountered at every conference I’ve ever attended (click to make it bigger):

There’s some good and bad in there – there always is – but if you look you’ll see the good vastly outweighs the bad.

And that’s something that helps make it awesome.

Scott Kinney, Vice President at Discovery Education, at a hearing regarding the Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools on June 16, 2009.

Yeah, you can say I’m a stickler about some things.  It’s genetic, I think.  Just try ending a sentence with a preposition when my sister’s around.

I’m critical about this because one of the things we teach in school (according to our curriculum, at least) is how to communicate well.  People who speak “properly” are more likely to do well in interviews and score higher paying and/or better quality careers.

But it’s not the only way people speak.  I dare you to turn on a radio and count how many times the word “ain’t” is used in one hour’s worth of song lyrics.  There, it’s acceptable.  In school, it’s not.

It gets worse when you head online, where sentences like “LOL school is teh suxxorz I hav a gud job even wit low gradez.” are easily understood and not criticized for grammar or spelling … in some circles.

“In some circles” is apparently the key phrase here.  In art we need to know our target audience, and we use our works, whether they’re visual, auditory, or something else, to communicate something.  I’m not likely to use Modernism to illustrate a children’s story about a young boy’s first week at school.

But online we have a wide variety of audiences with which we can participate, and the language norms can be incredibly different in each tab of our browser.  Several people I follow on Plurk and Twitter are fans of some strangely talking cats, but you still won’t see us posting things like “I can has Summer vacation!” or “Invisible budget” in our Professional Learning Networks.

So, if you remember how I started this post it’s safe to say I’m not in favor of students handing in essays written in 1337 or LoLspeak, even though I’m capable of communicating in both.  But I’m not so quick to dismiss these offshoots of the English language.  They were created by a generation that found themselves understanding the new technology far better than most of their teachers, so they built their own rules around it.

And if you look at it that way, it kinda roxxorz.

Having survived my 4th consecutive year presenting at MICCA & a few other places, I think it’s safe for me to say I know one or two things about it.  At least, I’ve yet to have a session that ended emptier than when it started, so I’ve got that going for me.

So here’s a list of 10 things that, if done correctly, will help your audience stay engaged and secure in the fact that you know what you’re talking about.  (Or at the very least, they’ll help you fake it.)

They’re numbered, but the order could be changed.  I’m not giving much thought to that part.

10. Market yourself. Don’t spend too much time on this, but your audience should know why you’re worth listening to on this subject.  Are you a DEN Star?  Google Certified?  Do you have 20 years experience working with Web 2.0 technology?  (OK, maybe in dog years…)  Spend 30 seconds telling them why you’re special.  Letting them know how to contact you if they have more questions later is good, too.

9. Don’t sit down. Some people can get away with it, but most of us can’t.  An enthusiastic presenter is more likely to capture an audience, and you can show your enthusiasm better while up and moving.

8. Podiums are walls. Even if they aren’t the big, bulky, “This could stop a truck and still be usable” podiums, they create a barrier between you and your audience.  Don’t hide behind one unless you audience scares you.  (In fact, don’t use one then, either.  Audiences can smell fear.)

7. PowerPoint is there to back you up. Not the other way around.  Substitute “PowerPoint” for “Keynote,” “Prezi,” “Google Presentation,” or whatever you intend to use.  If all you’re doing is reading your slides, you’re wasting space, time, and potentially oxygen.

6. Limit yourself. Just because a product or service can do 53,781 different things does not mean you have to cover all of them.  Tying in with #7: Just because PowerPoint has a plethora of transitions does not mean you should try to use all of them in a single session.  “Random” is the worst possible transition choice ever.  In both cases, you should pick your favorites and stick with those.

5. Ask questions. Your audience is full of intelligent people.  (Granted they’re listening to you, but there’s no reason to let them know that’s a strike against them!)  The questions you ask could be ones that just check to see if they’re paying attention or ones that change the course of your discussion topic, but they should have some way of knowing that you’re acknowledging their presence.

4. Don’t print your PowerPoint. I’m not just saying that because as I type this it’s Earth Day.  I’m saying this because paper is made of matter.  The science geeks out there (including me) will be happy to tell you that means it has mass and volume, and that means 2 reasons why your audience will resent your 10 page printout once it’s added to all the other printouts they’ve collected at that conference.  It adds up and shoulder pain is serious business.  Do them and yourself a favor and make a wiki with all the useful information on it.  Share the link at the beginning and end of your presentation and everyone will be happier for it.

3. Don’t admit mistakes that don’t mater, but admit the ones that do. So you wanted to cover 21 different Web 2.0 sites and skipped #17?  Forget about it.  If you have a wiki (you read #5, right?) they’ll be able to find ay small points you missed on there.  But remember that with the exception of my 2nd grade teacher, we’re all human.  Breathe deep, correct it if you can, acknowledge it if you can’t, and move on.  Your audience will respect you more or it, trust me.

2. Have a backup. PowerPoint will crash.  The network will go down.  Something will go horribly wrong if you don’t have a plan B.  When I’m talking about websites I’ll usually have screen captures of all the features I want to showcase, just in case.  I learned this lesson the hard way.  I will not share that story.

1. Your presentation will never be finished. I’ve seen keynote speakers changing slides shortly before they presented.  I myself have redone a presentation several times, then scrapped the whole thing to start over again because I wasn’t satisfied.  Leonardo da Vinci reportedly said “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”  That you want to keep making it better is admirable, but don’t stress out that you’re not “done.”

Another option would be to check out Selena Ward’s Plurk log of my Session 3 and someone else’s Session 4 (She didn’t attend mine because she’s already a PLN master).  Good stuff, there.

theartguy MICCA Session 2: “Gaming: How do I get Started?” with Dr. BJ Gallagher

• April 21, 2009 at 11:28 theartguy says Slight delay while scrounging for a laptop.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:30 theartguy says Handout is a wiki: begingaming.pbwiki.com/
• April 21, 2009 at 11:31 theartguy says Came up with using games in education while working with special needs kids.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:33 theartguy says Most games are “Drill & Practice,” others are a little more adventurous.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:34 theartguy says “Complex Games” are the way to go, though there is a learning curve for some.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:36 theartguy says “If a student’s in a wheelchair, they can pick an avatar that can get up and move!”
• April 21, 2009 at 11:37 theartguy says Mention of Runescape – she was cooking shrimp in the game and fought a troll. Heh.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:39 theartguy “If you want to get started find yourself a middle schooler. Not a high schooler they know too much.”
• April 21, 2009 at 11:41 theartguy Somewhat brief mention of MMORPGs while looking at Wikipedia article on gaming.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:43 theartguy says I’m somewhat confused – not about the gaming, but about the presenter’s enthusiasm. She seems enthusiastic … but not.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:44 theartguy says Universal Design for Learning, Differentiated Instruction, games can be used to support these systems.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:48 theartguy says “How are our games perceived around the world?” A good point is made here, some of our games don’t fit well with other cultures.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:49 theartguy says World of Warcraft removed a character based on a panda because China didn’t think it was a positive image.
• April 21, 2009 at 11:52 theartguy says I see how gaming can be used to assist education, but she could be making the connections better than “Here’s some links on some sites.”
• April 21, 2009 at 12:31 Tim Holt says keep these updates coming!
• April 21, 2009 at 12:38 theartguy says Next two sessions are mine – think my audience will mind if I stop to Plurk?

theartguy Session 1 is What Google Can Do For You by thetechtiger! Woot!

• April 21, 2009 at 10:11 theartguy says im.textthemob.com/id751
• April 21, 2009 at 10:32 miz mercer Back to being artguy I see
• April 21, 2009 at 10:38 theartguy says For now at least – don’t want to confuse the people I introduce to PLNs today.
• April 21, 2009 at 10:39 theartguy says Currently explaining Gmail & Gchat
• April 21, 2009 at 10:43 theartguy says It’s all a quick overview of everything right now. Cal, Docs, Maps, Earth
• April 21, 2009 at 10:44 bethmharvey says I love the site “text the mob” I have never seen that. Good luck on your presentation. Our teachers are most interested in Google Docs
• April 21, 2009 at 10:45 theartguy says “If you can use Office, you can use Google to make web pages.” So true
• April 21, 2009 at 10:47 theartguy says Best part about Google Docs is no more thumb drives to transfer documents. IMHO
• April 21, 2009 at 10:47 theartguy says Side note – this isn’t a PowerPoint. WHole thing is in prezi.com/
• April 21, 2009 at 10:49 theartguy says Google Groups – discussion boards. Can be public or private. Lots of good ones already exist.
• April 21, 2009 at 10:52 theartguy says iGoogle
• April 21, 2009 at 10:56 theartguy says Overview done, now for the nitty gritty!
• April 21, 2009 at 11:02 theartguy says Form – create a web based survey (or quiz or test!) and all answers are placed in a spreadsheet! I use this all the time and it’s awesome.

• theartguy says Web 1.0: Watch Tv and try to understand commercials.
• April 21, 2009 at 09:15 theartguy says Web 2.0: Produce media
• April 21, 2009 at 09:17 theartguy says “Get out of the notion of giving kids something to do every 20 minutes.” They need to manage their own time.
• April 21, 2009 at 09:18 theartguy says “When you want to learn something new, what do you do?”
• April 21, 2009 at 09:22 theartguy says Showed a video of a 10 yr old video blogger. Kid mentioned a JoCo song. Nice
• April 21, 2009 at 09:22 techtiger I really liked that kids are the CEO of their own brand
• April 21, 2009 at 09:24 theartguy says Enabling trends: Mobility – 24/7 access & user created content.
• April 21, 2009 at 09:26 theartguy says Indeed, thetechtiger – It was rather “permanent record”-ish, but in a good way.
• April 21, 2009 at 09:27 theartguy says Also enabling: Social Interactions for Learning. Social interactions are PROMOTING learning.
• April 21, 2009 at 09:34 theartguy says And just got a link from timholt about being a Keynote speaker.

For the 4th year in a row, I will be presenting at MICCA.

For the 1st time (for this conference, at least…), I will be presenting twice.

And as usual, I’m opening my handouts up to everyone who wants to add in their two cents.  I feel they’re ready to go as-is, but that doesn’t mean I’m the only person who knows what he’s talking about!  (I’m hoping for supplementary information, not for someone to do the work for me.)

My presentations are as follows.  Click the links to see, edit, and/or add to my wikis:

Art 2.0

…how art lessons in the computer lab can reinforce other subjects.

Paper, pencils, and paints are good, but there are also plenty of free art projects that reinforce other subjects and can be taught using just computers. This session will showcase some tools, tips, and tricks that any teacher can use.

Personal Learning Networks

…how microblogs and more can make you a better teacher.

Personal learning networks (also called professional learning networks) are a quick, easy, and free way to continue your professional growth as an educator using web 2.0. This session will explain PLNs in more detail and show a variety of free sites that can be used to build your own.