Posts Tagged ‘keynote’
Talks are the least effectiveness way to effect change, but they are a necessary evil because people still organise them and the talks can have extensive reach.
But when I conduct talks, seminars, or keynotes, I ensure that I interact with my audience richly in a few ways.
Why do this? Most speakers will use an “e” word like engagement or even entertainment. I do not play these games because I know my participants are smarter than to fall for that.
I use tools to interact so that my audience (listeners) become participants (thinkers, doers). I do not wish to merely engage, I want to participants to take ownership of learning and responsibility of action.
Beth Kanter shared some ideas last week. I am weighing in on my own and I suggest free tools combined with basic principles of educational psychology.
BACKCHANNEL
A backchannel is an online space for participants to comment, discuss, and ask questions while I am speaking or after I have asked them to consider an issue.
My favourite backchannel tools are Twitter and TodaysMeet.
Twitter is great when an organiser already has one or more event #hashtags that participants can use. This presumes that a sizeable number of participants already use Twitter or are willing to get on it quickly.
TodaysMeet is better when participants have not committed to any particular platform. If they can text or SMS, then can use TodaysMeet.
With my own free TodaysMeet account, I can create an online text-based interaction space and define how long it will be open for. I then invite participants to it by sharing the access URL. (Pro tip: Create a custom URL with bit.ly and a QR code with this generator.)
One of the most recent versions of Google Slides lets you invite questions from the audience. The URL for participants to submit questions appears at the top of your slides and they can vote up the best questions. (Read my review of Google Slides audience tool.)
This is not quite a backchannel because it is not designed for chatter. It favours focused queries. This tool might be better for less adventurous participants who are not used to switching quickly between tasks.
Whatever the backchannel tool, its use must be guided by sound educational principles. You might want to provide participants with a space to be heard immediately instead of waiting till the end, or you want to monitor their thoughts, sense their doubts, or get feedback.
VISUALISATIONS
The visualisations I am referring to are not images and videos. These are show-and-tell elements which are attempts to engage, but have little to do with interacting with participants.
My most common strategy of participative visualisation is to incorporate data collecting and collating tools like Google Forms and AnswerGarden.
Both these tools require user inputs that can be visualised. For example, I could ask the room which major phone platform they are on: Android, iOS, other in a Google Form.
The data they provide is collated in a Google Sheet and can be visualised in a pie chart or bar graph. The relative proportions are more obvious to see than asking the participants to raise their hands.
There are many tools that do what Google Forms and Sheets do, possibly a bit quicker and slicker. But these normally come at a premium. The GSuite is free.
One way to visualise a group’s grasp of concepts is to use a word cloud. For example, I am fond of asking participants what they consider the most important 21st century competencies.
I invite them to share words or short phrases in an AnswerGarden in brainstorming mode. The most commonly cited concepts appear large while the less common ones become small.
The purpose of such illustrations is not just to leverage on the fact that we are visual creatures and the visuals make an immediate impact. I want participants to get involved in real time and this helps also me illustrate how the technology enables more current forms of learning and work.
TOPIC CHOICE AND FOCUS
One of the worst things I could do as a speaker is talk about something that the audience has no interest in. As it is, some or most of the people there might be present as an obligation and not by choice. So I try to find out what they might want to learn.
I often use Google Forms to find out beforehand and present the popular suggested topics in the form of a chart.
With smaller seminars, I might use Dotstorming to determine which direction to take midway through the event. I ask participants to suggest areas to explore and they vote on topics each others topics.
Dotstorming is similar to Padlet in that users input ideas on online stickies. However, Dotstorming allows me to let them vote on the best ideas and arrange the notes by popularity.
The idea here is to give the participant a say in what gets covered or uncovered. It is about providing and fulfilling user choice instead of focusing on a potentially irrelevant curriculum or plan.
QUIZZING
My perennial favourite for quick-quizzing participants is Flubaroo, an add-on to Google Forms for auto-grading quizzes as well as providing feedback and answers to my learners.
Google Forms has since upped its game to offer quiz-like functions, but it still lags behind the leader, Flubaroo in some ways. This site provides a detailed breakdown of a Forms quiz vs a Flubaroo one.
The point of quizzing is not just to keep participants on their toes. Some might be driven by such a challenge, but all benefit from evaluating themselves in terms of learning. The results can also be an indicator of how much my talk was understood.
REFLECTION AND TAKEAWAYS
I am fond of using Padlet and Google Forms for pitstops and one-minute papers.
Pitstops are pauses in my sessions for participants to collect their thoughts and think of questions. They are an opportunity for them to see if they can link the negotiated outcomes with their current state of learning, and to see where they still need to go.
A takeaway or “dabao” (in local vernacular) is a terminal activity in which I ask participants to tell me their biggest learning outcome from the session.
In both I find that there is an even mix of planned and unplanned learning outcomes. This is a good thing because the internalisation and ownership of learning is important, not just the blind reception of information.
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
I do not only like to connect with participants before and during a talk, but also after it. I do so a few ways.
I leave my social media information in one of the final slides.
If I use a backchannel, participants can contact me indefinitely on Twitter and up to several days or weeks after on TodaysMeet.
I also use my blog to reflect on the events and to answer questions I might not have been able to address during the session.
A hesitant share
Posted on: March 30, 2017
I hesitate to highlight keynotes I do for edtech companies. They are often looking for an endorsement by an expert for a product or platform.
I do not always have first-hand experience of what they want to sell to audiences nor do I agree with what it is, how it works, and why it was designed that way. So most of the time I say no.
Every now and then I say yes if there is an opportunity for me to create dissonance and spark change. In December 2016, I delivered a keynote in the Philippines to do just that.
Today I am resharing that keynote along with four key processes associated with it: Visual design, interaction design, technical outcomes, and rise above reflection.
Why did I hesitate in sharing?
The hesitation was creating an entry in my Presentations page. I did not want to come across as endorsing products; I only endorse contextual, meaningful, and powerful change.
I had openly shared my thoughts during the preparation, on the day of the keynote, and shortly after. The presentation itself was and is still freely available online under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY-NC-SA).
My hesitation lies mostly with the limited impact of keynotes. I have been on a limited keynote circuit for several years now, but I still do not believe in them fully. That said, words do matter, and when timed just right, might seed change or push it along.
In describing how I might design for interaction during what are normally passive talks, I mentioned how I used Google Forms for a quiz, AnswerGarden to crowdsource ideas, and Google Slides’ Q&A tool for a keynote I delivered yesterday.
This is my reflection on how things panned out.
I used Google Forms to get participants to use their mobile devices to take a five-question quiz. They had to Google for information to answer the questions.
Of the roughly 200 people there, 107 managed to take the quiz in the time I gave. The quiz scores ran the gamut, but that was not important.
What was important was how a low-bandwidth activity could get everyone involved (imagine if each person shared their device with someone else) and that it served as an introduction to the recurring themes of my talk on 21C: Mindsets, expectations, and behaviours.
I think that activity went well as did the AnswerGarden activity.
I used AnswerGarden to get participants to suggest what they thought were important 21C competencies. This is a screenshot of what they suggested.
The word cloud that emerged highlighted the popular concepts. For example, 33 people suggested communication, 33 creativity, 28 critical thinking, and 21 collaboration. With that information, I was able to make the point that such 21C competencies were not unique to the 21C; they are timeless and it is more about how we model and make these happen with today’s technology.
I opted not to use my go-to TodaysMeet backchannel or close with a one-minute paper on the same platform. Instead I opted for Google Slides Q&A.
This tool allowed participants to ask questions and vote them up. The URL to do this was at the top of every slide. However, I found it to be too unwieldy.
The URL kept changing based on the instance of the presentation I ran. This meant I could not prepare a QR code and short URL in advance. Participants had to type in a URL that, while not terribly long, was not very convenient either. It was no surprise that there were fewer than ten questions.
When I first tried this tool a few months ago, Google Slides kept track of the questions. Now I do not know exactly how many there are and what they are. I do not have this problem with any other tools I have used before.
I mentioned in a pre-keynote reflection that I removed three of four chunks of content. I think this was a wise move as that not only provided focus, I had almost 30 minutes for Q&A which meant that I could provide more specific answers to those who had questions.
I normally reflect on my preparation for consultancy services and do post-mortems like this one. I often have one more follow up in the form of unanswered questions, either from a pre-event poll or a backchannel. But since this was a whirlwind engagement, I do not have those closing tasks. So tomorrow I will reflect a travel experience instead.
I am scheduling this entry to coincide with the end of my talk in the Philippines this morning.
My Google Slides deck is available online.
First, some background.
I was approached to deliver this talk two weeks ago. By the time the contract document was finalised, I had just six days to prepare the slide deck.
This was a very short runway because I normally work with partners who contact me three to six months, or even a year, in advance. I can recall only one other similar late request. In both these cases, I either knew someone well or had worked with the organiser before.
I wrote earlier that I prefer the “stewing” method of preparation. This gives me time and space to make changes based on more current information I find. I agreed to help even though this was an “instant noodle” request only because I had delivered similar talks before.
Despite the short runway, I decided to challenge myself by using my own visual design approach, refreshing old content, and incorporating new information. This meant very quick and intense work, but very little rehearsal.
As with all talks, I struggled during preparation to decide how much content to include. I decided to remove three of four broad topics, but left the content in the slide deck just in case they came up during the Q&A.
Now, a bit of history. This is the fourth year in a row that I have been invited by a group in the Philippines.
- 2013: Keynote for Philippine eLearning Society
- 2014: Plenary for Policy Governance and Capacity Building Conference
- 2015: Keynote for De La Salle University
- 2016: GenYo Innovation Summit by DIWA, Philippines (partner of Marshall Cavendish, Singapore)
None of these visits were by my design. They were a result of doing good work, making connections, and maintaining a constant online presence.
Finally, a strategy. I share as openly as I can. If there is a contract, I ask that the resources I prepare be shared under a Creative Commons license. I stipulate this in every proposal document I prepare.
This practice does at least two important things. It keeps my resources searchable and accessible online, and it encourages my partners to rethink their closed practices. It is my small way of promoting open-minded and open-practised changes in educational technology.
Keynote: Visual design
Posted on: November 30, 2016
As I draft this reflection, I am facing an impasse with an organiser of a talk I am due to give overseas*. The issue is whether or not I should use the organiser’s PowerPoint template (complete with corporate branding) as the background of my slides.
My conversation with the organiser is between them and me. However, I realised this was a learning opportunity, not on how to negotiate in such situations, but how and why I design slides to visually deliver subtle yet powerful messages.
I often opt for a minimal look instead of heavy text and bullet points. I have learnt that I should tell the story, not the slides; they are there to back me up.
In this set of slides, I took minimalism one step further by relying on black, white, and the shades between.
The slide above is early in the sequence and shows the themes of my presentation. The slide below is near the end and highlights a closing message.
The theme slide follows an online activity and the words scaffold what I lead participants to reflect on. The conclusion slide helps me deliver a closing mantra. The difference between the two is their lateral alignment.
The anglosphere is used to reading left to right. The conclusion slide is expected and easy to read. This is critical at the end of talk if you want the audience to focus on takeaways and temporarily put aside questions, dissonance, and tiredness.
The reflection slide might cause a bit of visual dissonance because the header and text are not where they usually are.
Here is another slide from the same deck that uses my switch-to-the-right theme. I use this visual technique to highlight dissonance.
When you look in the mirror, you see yourself laterally inverted. It is you, but not quite you. The reflection is an opportunity to examine yourself and focus on what needs improvement.
So my normal left-aligned layouts are messages I share while the right-aligned ones are for dissonance and reflection. My presentations tend to be iterative cycles of presenting forward and stepping back.
This is subtle and I do not explain this design to my audience. But I will invariably get feedback that the slides are visually impactful.
Before my audience can get comfortable with soothing greyscale, I provide the occasional punches of colour. If I go on a storytelling stretch or a series of slides to make a point, I emphasise these presenting forward elements with colour shouts to make sure that the main question, point, or challenge is clear.
Tomorrow I share how I design talks for interaction.
*Update: The issue is resolved and I am using my own visual design instead of a corporate template.
How I prepare for keynotes
Posted on: October 25, 2016
In my Presentations page I share the more recent keynotes and talks I have done. I prefer workshops, but these are not as straightforward to conduct and present as a portfolio of work.
I have had to do talks for about ten years as a former university professor and especially now as a consultant. During this time my process has evolved and refined.
My main process is to stew, especially when I have months-long lead time. Take my recently concluded keynote, Don’t Play Games with Gamification, for SIM Global Education as an example. I met the organisers in late July and I started outlining, collecting thoughts and ideas, and organising in Evernote on 28 Jul 2016. I delivered the keynote on 22 Oct 2016. That is a three-month slow cook.
A quick scroll down my Presentations page might also reveal how the topics are quite different. Professional speakers can repeat or rehash their talks and get very well paid for them. I often come up with fresh content.
I do rehash some content and ideas to suit context and audience, and I also like reusing Google Presentation templates that are visually pleasing.
My modus operandi: Get as much background information as possible through meetings, interviews, and document analysis; visit the venue to get a feel of the room; conduct a pre-event poll; provide a backchannel and other opportunities for the audience to become participants; provide pitstops or time to reflect on takeaways.
Through all this I stir my stew, blend and extract flavours, remove what does not look right, and reduce content as much as possible. The last part of the reduction is taking out spoon-feeding elements and adding elements that require participants to feed themselves. That is something I cannot write down in a recipe.
My As to some Qs from my keynote
Posted on: October 24, 2016
Last Saturday, I delivered a keynote and participated in a panel on game-based learning and gamification.
I had questions that I could not address in the limited time during my keynote as well as the panel at the end of the conference. These were from the pre-conference poll.
I wish to address these questions, but I will focus only on questions that I understand.
How to tie in GBL with small-wins or short-term rewards?
I have no idea how to do this with GBL because I have not implemented GBL with this design or intent. Nor will I ever. During the keynote I described how games could be integrated to focus on thinking skills, attitudes, values, and intrinsic motivation. These take time to develop and I would rather invest in these.
How would I use this technique if the University has a set of rules I have to follow and present?
The university (or partner university in your case) is unlikely to have rules about pedagogy. If it did, that is not a university that is looking to serve for today and tomorrow.
You know the content, context, and your learners best. The WHAT of a prescribed curriculum might be very full. The HOW is your responsibility and limited by your creativity.
Must it be IT based?
The “it” could be games or gamification. Both could be enabled with current technology or not. I gave examples of both during the keynote, so I have addressed that part of the question.
Here is the other part: ICT is a more current term than IT since the former is often more interactive and multi-way while the latter is more transmissive and about regulations.
What types of subjects are suitable for game based learning?
Any and all of them are suitable, especially if you do not limit yourself to content-based learning and expand the possibilities to include critical and creative thinking, socio-emotional learning, soft skills, attitudes and values, etc.
Can Gamification ideas be implemented not through a game but just mere teaching activity?
Gamification does not employ games; it uses deconstructed elements of games, e.g., points, levelling up, leaderboards.
Your question seems to hint at game-like instruction. There are strategies like putting the problem (assessment) first or early, and focusing on just-in-time learning instead of just-in-case front loading.
I would like to try this approach but I am afraid it might take up a lot of the class time. How do I go about it without sacrificing too much of the contact time?
Can you have a cake and not eat it? 😉
Something has to give and if it comes to that, you might have to use your judgement to see what to push out in order include something else.
How viable would it be to introduce gamification within a primary/secondary school classroom? The aim is to use gaming elements to increase engagement between the students and the teacher.
It is certainly viable, as apparent by the number of vendors and parties outside of schooling and higher education who want to do this.
Unfortunately, these groups sell you on the low-hanging fruit of “increased engagement”. Do not play this game because this is not why any technology-mediated strategy should be used.
Trying to engage is like trying to take control of light switches: You try to flip them on so that your students see the light. But they are just as easy to switch off or learners can move on to something else.
Engagement is something you do to try to help your students; empowerment is something you pass to students so they help everyone. By all means engage, but do not forget to empower. Vendors might tell you how to engage with gamification; I would rather see learners empowered by game-based learning.
how to know which game is appropirate [sic] for teaching when we don’t game?
You do not and cannot know. So play!
My replies to these questions might have a perceived tone. I assure the askers that my replies come from a good place and with good intent: I want us to collectively change and improve our practice.
Participants of the session observed how the panel and I approached the Q&A. The same tone and concern should be applied here.
Post-keynote reflection
Posted on: October 23, 2016
I reflect after any talks or workshops I deliver or facilitate. My hour-long keynote yesterday, Don’t Play Games with Gamification, was no exception.
If the unsolicited feedback I received online, during the lunchtime conversations, or even as I tried to use a restroom are any indication, the keynote went well.
I also amazed by the efforts of @Reinventionist2 who made his thinking visual at the conference. He was kind enough to show his work to me and to ask for my signature.
All that said, I am my worst critic because I know what I had planned and what I had to leave out.
I shared what I intended to do here. I took the risk of biting off more than I could chew, and despite telling participants we might only have time to cover two of the three main parts, I had to leave out some more.
In trying to create opportunities for participants to interact with one another during the keynote, I took up more time than I should have. I dislike it when others overshoot their time and I am sorry for throwing the schedule off.
My ‘live’ demo of apps using AirServer went off without a hitch thanks to the efforts of people working in the background to unblock ports. I had my mifi device there just in case, too.
Of the three shared online spaces we used, we under-utilised one, Padlet. I had to push participants for time and I resorted to asking people to share their thoughts verbally instead of reflecting online.
I am glad that I decided to stick with TodaysMeet since it was and still is a proper backchannel. Google Presentation’s Q&A is still not quite there yet. A few took to tweeting with the hashtag #simgeconf. Very few. So I am glad that I had my own backchannel and Q&A area.
I was also able to work in answers to questions raised by folks in the pre-conference Google Forms poll. I hope I managed to answer the pertinent questions and I “hijacked” part of the panel session at the end of the day to bring up a sensitive but critical question that someone asked in the poll.
Speaking of the panel, I thoroughly enjoyed the panel session because all of us, moderator included, were candid and humorous. It was gratifying to see the audience laughing and taking notes well into a Saturday afternoon.
Post-draft note: I just received an updated version of the visual map of all four speakers’ talks. Many thanks to @Reinventionist2, aka Thum Cheng Cheong, for his brilliant work! [Full-sized version]
Hot April
Posted on: April 26, 2016
It has been a hot month of April in more ways than one.
I rarely rely on air-conditioning, but I have had to use it several times this month to get a decent night’s sleep.
I have also enjoyed the most varied work ever since striking out on my own as an education consultant since August 2014.
In early April, I evaluated the ability of future faculty to facilitate modern learning. Last week I sat with colleagues in what might be called a Board of Examiners meeting. We were bored of examining because the series of learning experiences is unlike anything I have ever been involved in.
In the middle of April, I delivered a keynote and participated in a panel for the Social Services Institute, the professional development arm of the National Council of Social Services, Singapore. It was wonderful to see a major player wanting to shrug off the shackles of traditional education.
Not long after that I flew to a conference overseas to facilitate conversations on the flipped classroom vs flipped learning. The strange thing is connecting with Singaporeans there that I could more easily meet at home.
After returning from my trip, I met with a passionate edu-preneur and professor after we connected via my blog.
Another connection was a result of my keynote. It will take place via one of two Google Hangouts that will bring April to a close. I hope that it will bring more opportunities in the months to come.
The other Hangout is a result of my flipped learning talk last January at Bett 2015. I am tempted to call it remote mentoring and hope to repeat a strategy I tried at the more recent conference.
The exceptionally warm weather here is not the norm at this time of year. The variety of work I have had is not the norm either. While I hope the muggy days and nights go away, I do what I can to keep the sizzling work in play.
Reflecting on SSI Enables 2016
Posted on: April 16, 2016
I felt privileged to play active roles in SSI Enables 2016, an event held yesterday that was organised under the umbrella of the National Council of Social Services, Singapore.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Chan.
I was the keynote speaker on social media-enabled PLNs and a panel member on how to move a system forward.
I do not think I have ever walked away from a keynote and thought to myself that the session was perfect. I invariably look critically at my performance and wish I had used a better turn of phrase or had done something else.
However, I walked off the stage feeling very satisfied yesterday.
The audience gamingly got involved in the pre-keynote activities of taking part in a poll and completing a word cloud in AnswerGarden. During the keynote, the backchannel often scrolled faster than I could read.
During the panel session, the organisers took my advice to use a free tool, Dotstorming, to raise questions that could be voted up. The audience took to it like fish to water.
During the panel session, at lunch, and during my interaction with various people, I received reinforcement, validation, and positive comments. For example, I kept getting feedback from different people that they had never before experienced learning of that kind and quality. That was high praise indeed.
But all that time I thought I was just saying the ordinary:
- The timeless competencies are learning, unlearning, and relearning.
- All three are enabled by social media — particularly Twitter — in personal learning networks (PLNs).
This was a reminder that:
- An old message can be a new one to someone else.
- Keynotes can be interactive and involved if you design for learning, not for speaking.
- Panel sessions can be less like a fishbowl and focused more on answering participants’ questions.
I still have some unfinished work even though the face-to-face component is over. While I have processed the questions in the backchannel, I have yet to analyse and answer the 50 or so questions that were raised in the poll. I will do this while I am away at a conference next week.
Another dot in the blogosphere? 