Network 2007---A summary

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 was a day I prepared for with a varying amount preparation since before school let out last June. At that time I was teaching at the Worcester Adult learning Center and had volunteered to make a presentation at the Massachusetts Conference on Adult Education (MCAE) held at the Royal Plaza Best Western Hotel in Marlboro, Ma. on October 24 and 25. My topic was "Blogging with ESOL Students"

In late July, I resigned as a teacher at the Worcester Adult Learning Center. As the school year approached and it became clear that my blog (Write, Write, Write) would be a "dead blog" so to speak because I would not be teaching a "live class", I considered canceling my workshop to MCAE. My partner for the workshop (Romeo Marquis) talked me out of it. There were times over the past several weeks that I thought that he was wrong, but I now (grudgingly) say that he was right.

Romeo picked me up at 10:00 A.M. I had my laptop computer, my notebook, 50 copies of Kim Perry's powerpoint presentation from Best Practices on how to set up your own blog, 50 copies of my own revised(three times at least!) outline of our presentation, and a copy of "Side by Side" with the new blogging words I wrote for it as our "ice breaker" . My "security blanket" was there to greet us at the hotel. "Security blanket"? That's Eunice Snay, Technology Coordinator Central SABES, who is ALWAYS so helpful in so many ways. We were given the Seminar Room, a beautiful amphitheater-style room with a screen and wireless (wi-fi) computer connection.

Romeo got out his guitar and as close to 1:00 as we could (lunch was late.) we began to sing, " Oh we like to teach about blogging and get it into your nogging..." (The song sung to the tune of "Side by Side was a good icebreaker and half way through I reached into my pocket for Romeo's fancy laser pointer. I would need that when Romeo became the "bus driver" (running the computer) and I became the tour guide (going through the blog).

All of the technology worked pefectly! That is to the hotel's credit. If it had not, both Eunice and Romeo had helped me with TWO backup plans. Romeo had taken data off my blog and put it on a program called "Snagit" and Eunice took mini-lessons (11 of them) that I had done in 2006 and put on a flashdrive and she put them in a folder so that if the internet broke down at the hotel our workshop would not have to be scrapped.

With two weeks to go before the conference I learned that 42 people had registered for our workshop. They were not all ESOL teachers. Some were "tech people" (like Eunice) ; some were GED teachers; some were Department of Education people. It was time to PANIC---not because of the nature of the audiece but beause of the numbers. There were too many people! I knew that therfe had to be a lot of reading done off a screen in the front of the room. People way in the back would have to be read to. That is never a good situation. the first thing I did was to request the conference leader to cut off registration to our workshop. By this time, 44 people had signed up and the workshop was closed. On Wednesday I counted 51 people and a few more drifted in as the workshop progressed. (AS I ANNOUNCED AT THE WOKSHOP, IF YOU DID NOT GET THE HANDOUTS, SEND ME AN E-MAIL AND I WILL SEND THEM TO YOU AS AN ATTACHMENT.)

The workshop took the full time that I had left after the late lunch and I had to finish at 2:30 because someone else was coming in to use the room.

The evaluation sheets that were handed in at the end of the session had a white and yellow sheet. I deposited the white sheets in the slotted box provided and kept the yellow sheets for analysis. The workshop is rated on a five point scale: 5=excellent, 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor. The evaluation sheet rates the workshop in four areas:

1. What was the overall quality of the workshop?

2. Was the workshop well organized?

3. Were the activities,and ideas, appropriate, interesting, and

useful?

4. Were the presenters sufficiently prepared and knowledgeable?

I took the results and converted them to percentages and the results for Romeo and I were as follows:

Question #1--------excellent (5) 83.3%

Question#2-------- " " 83.3%

Question#3------- " " 83.3%

Question 4-------- " " 90%

I enjoyed reading all the comments, esecially the comment that described Romeo and I as "the Sunshine Boys".

I would like to sincerely thank all of those people who helped to make our presentation so successful. Thank you to Eunice Snay of Central SABES for her computer expertise, counsel, and chat sessions. Thank you to Kim Perry for the same reasons with the addition of the use of her powerpoint presentation on setting up a blog. Thank you to Romeo Marquis for your musical talents and the various roles you played throughout. Thank you to Sue Miller for printing the handouts and having them ready so quickly! That helped a lot. Thank you to my daughter, Cathy. I hate to tell you publicly, but I will anyway. You were absolutely right when you told me to leave the "Welcome to the World of Mr. Richard Stans" sign at home. The song was the better icebreaker and as it turned out we ran out of time anyway. Finally, thank you to all of the people who came to our presentation. If you scrolldown the right side of the "banner" of my blog and click on the word ARCHIVES, you can explore posts dating back to 2005 that time and the late lunch did not allow us to show you.