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This love of sharing isn't limited to just my blog, tweeting ideas (and my blog), and participating in chats on various Voxer groups. I also love to share at trainings and conferences, which is also one of the main reasons why I choose to volunteer so much of my times working with CUE-NV. Over the course of my first few years of teaching, I didn't do a lot of presenting to staff and I certainly never had presented at a district level professional development day or at a regional or national conference. I was too wrapped up in coaching football and working on my master's to sacrifice any more time and, regrettably, I didn't think that my voice was worth hearing at the time.
Finally, a few years ago (the exact year is lost on me at this point), I started to come out of that shell. I started to become more involved at my school on various committees and I was tasked with presenting to staff on various things on professional development days and during our "house meetings" after school once a month. Then the million dollar question was asked of me: "Would you be willing to present to educators during a Google Mini-Conference offered by the district?" I was definitely stunned by the question, but without hesitation, I agreed to do so.
At one of my previous schools, we were a pilot for the rollout for Google Apps for Education accounts. Each teacher and student was given a GAFE account, along with everything that comes with that account. While I already had been relatively tech-savvy and had incorporated a great deal of technology into my curriculum, I really took off with the account. My classroom was incorporating aspects of the flipped classroom and I was nearly paperless, with a few exceptions. When Google Classroom came out, the transition to paperless was complete. Did I have access to one-to-one devices in my classroom? By no means, but I was lucky enough to work at a school where students could and would bring their own devices, even if it was a simple flip phone that had access to the Internet (I am still amazed by the resiliency of a student that did not have any access to a device outside of her flip phone and wrote all of her assignments and even papers on that phone for me and her other classes). Over the course of a couple of years, I became very savvy using the various Google tools, as well as other tools that I had delved into and had started making a name for myself. My supervisor at the time had mentioned my name to some district-level educators, hence why I was asked.
Fast forward a few years, and I cannot even begin to think about how many presentations I have made at various district conference, EdTech Team Google and Apple Summits, and CUE-NV events. It occurred to me a few days ago that while I have presented dozens of times, I have never presented outside of Las Vegas. I mentioned this to my wife, and she was surprised as well (she has this really unique "Really?" when something confuses or surprises her, this was one of those moments). I decided that it was high time to start looking into presenting in other areas to a new audience.
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Have you tried Pear Deck yet? If not, you should... Image courtesy of peardeck.com |
My next step: completing my Google Certified Trainer requirements and application again (my last submission was rejected, but I know why and haven't had the time to go back to correct it). I will need to recertify my Google Certified Educator Level 2 first, as well as redo the requirements for the trainer application, but I am not worried about that. I also need to consider submitting proposals for future events like Fall CUE and CUE National. I think I am ready for that kind of an audience, something that I would have never said as early as 5 years ago.
Until next time...
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