My First Presentation Experience
This is the first of two related posts. The second will hopefully be posted in the next day or two.
Today marked the first time I was presenting at a conference. My friend and colleague, Rachel Yurk
, and I were scheduled to present a session on Personal Learning Networks at the WEAC Convention. This is the state convention in Wisconsin, put on by our state Teachers’ Union. I have attended this conference in past years, but have never presented. This year, I thought it might be fun to present. Well, what happened today, was not fun.
We arrived about 30 minutes before we were to start, took care of registration, wandered around a little, and heading to our room about ten minutes early. I thought there was a presentation before us, but when we arrived, the room was empty. This conference is not a technology conference. Now that I think about it, shouldn’t ANY conference about education include technology? I honestly had no idea what to expect as far as an audience. I was hoping for ten people. I pulled out my laptop, connected it to the projector, and started getting ready. At this time, we had two people trickle in and take a seat – wow, a real audience. I tried to pull up the wiki we put together on PLN’s, but couldn’t find a wireless signal. I tried the “Free Public Wifi” that popped up, but couldn’t connect. I saw a signal for the conference center, but that was not free. About this time, I sort of panicked. We were about to talk about networks and connecting to other educators, demonstrating Twitter and other PLN related ideas, but couldn’t get online. Luckily, someone from the conference came in and asked how things were going. I told him we couldn’t get online. He said there is no wireless in the presentation rooms. I asked about the paid option and he said it worked great in the common areas, but might be pretty weak in the room. We decided against paying for something that probably wouldn’t work. He did say there was a hard wire option and he would send someone from the conference center IT department in to help us. Okay, this might work. In the meantime, one of the people in the room left. We were down to one.
As we shared our frustration with the only attendee in our session, a first year teacher, the IT guy came in. We asked about an internet connection and he calmy stated that a hard wire connection would cost us $400. I honestly thought he was joking, but he was not. Trying to present on PLN’s without an internet connection is pretty challenging. She clearly understood our frustration and was very cool about it. I was pleased she wanted to stick around and still hear from us. I’m not sure I would have done the same. We ended up sitting around and talking to the one person who stayed. Rachel did most of the talking while I went into the hallway to see if I could pick up some kind of signal – no luck. We continued to discuss the advantages of having a PLN, shared the wiki address with her and encouraged her to contact us in the near future, for any help. I do think she picked up a few things from our discussion, but it was not clearly the same as if she could have seen everything live. Oh well.
After we were done, we headed back to the presenter checkin area to find out about internet connection in the building. I was pretty upset that things didn’t work out, not to mention feeling pretty much like an idiot. The woman at the counter asked us if we checked that we needed internet access on our presentation form. I told her that option didn’t exist and she pulled up our form and confirmed I was right – there was nothing on the form that asked whether we needed access or not. She mentioned that WEAC had to pay about $400 dollars for internet access in the rooms. Apparently, assuming there was internet access at a large, statewide education conference, was a mistake. She did page the man in charge of the entire conference and we continued to discuss with him the fact that not having internet access is pretty ridiculous. He did bring up the incredibly high costs of certain things the convention center was charging them for – $500 for an LCD projector rental, for example. We did discuss the idea of considering access at this type of event when looking at venues for the future. He was nice, apologized, understood where we were coming from, but at this point, probably could not have done anything that would have satisfied us.
It really was a shame. We had great information to share, much of which has come from our own PLN’s. Needless to say, my first time presenting will most likely not be forgotten. Unfortunately, it’ll be remembered for what it wasn’t, not for what is was.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:11 PM
Same thing happened to me when I went to present at our state administrators’ summer leadership conference several years ago. Oh they got me configured alright, and my session went well, but that $4oo bill that came in the mail a week later was a total shock. I went round and round with the conference folks, showing that no where in the paperwork did it indicate connectivity was not understood. Yeah. After many arguments, the conference finally waived my bill, and the next year when calls for proposals came, that sentence was large and clear. While I loved presenting at this conference for the couple of years I did, I decided the cost was not worth it and stopped going. This is sad when there is an audience who needs to see engaged learning with technology from a librarian no less, but I cannot afford to present there. So I do know EXACTLY how you feel. Also, you learned a valuable lesson from this experience–ALWAYS go to presentations with a plan B and maybe even a plan C.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:46 PM
Hey Chad,
Been there, done that. Sorry about your first experience with presenting. This seems to be a common theme in public or private school venues. Yesterday I spoke on Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 at the Wisconsin Lutheran State Teachers’ conference in Milwaukee. I have to say the gal in charge of the conference,Kris Snyder, did an excellent job of making sure through a series of emails that the internet connection I desperately needed would be available and that an IT person would meet with me in the room at a pre specified time to ensure my MacBook Pro would indeed function within their networking.
Needless to say, the double sectional went off without a hitch and a lot of great social learning occurred. I’m encouraging you not to give up because if you take if the conference is a good one it will deal with these things proactively. I do think the presenter often has to go above and beyond before hand to make things go well. You’ve got a lot to offer fellow educators and I hope next time will be as smooth as silk!
November 10th, 2009 at 9:15 AM
I think many of us have a similar story. After an issue like that, I started making sure that my cell phone could always be used to tether an internet connection to my computer. That’s one backup. But the other thing I’ve started doing is for many of my presentations, I have screen shot versions. For my top 10 Web 2.0 presentation, it has about 200 slides in it for a one hour presentation. I’ve never had to use it before (thankfully), but in the absolute worst case scenario, I’d be able to drag it out and use it.
Very much a shame, but hopefully it won’t discourage you from giving it another whirl. Just file it under learning experience
November 25th, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Oh, Chad, what a bummer! I am still shocked that wi-fi is not ubiquitous, especially at an ed tech convention! (I guess my love for tech has me biased!) I’m thinking about starting to present at my state conference… I wonder if a broadband USB connection would save me from this type of headache… Might be something for all presenters to consider…
December 7th, 2009 at 11:22 PM
Wow, a rough experience to be sure – especially for your first-time presenting. My first time presenting at a national conference I was prepared — there was no Internet connection – they wanted $1200 for a hardwire. I politely said no thank you. So I used my backup system of pre-downloaded audio and video to go along with my visual preso. It went smoothly enough and we did have a healthy audience – however, no one from my own school attended and that was disappointing.
At another conference, I watched a keynote speaker being skewered on Twitter. I thought that was rude.
At yet another conference, I walked into a session only to find my pic and Twitter account on the Jumbotron. I said to the speaker – whom I did not know – gee, that’s me.
At that same conference, in one session, I was shocked at the rudeness of people walking in and out throughout the discussion. I know that session hopping is considered okay by some — but this room was not set up for that. Glass doors, noisy hallway, so the speakers were constantly bombarded with the traffic.
I have learned from all these experiences and know what I will do and not do in the future. I hope you try presenting again. Best wishes,
Jeanne S
LMS
JSerra Cath HS