The Smackdown That Was

It's been far too long since I've blogged about anything. As a first year administrator I've found that many things I like to do don't rank very high on my priority list. However, after presenting a session on classroom blogging at our teachers' convention (twitter hashtag #seatca12) I felt compelled to get back into the habit.

After hearing about Web 2.0 Smackdowns at Edcamps and other conferences (ISTE 11) I decided to give one a try at our local convention. The basic idea of a smackdown is that participants become the presenters. It is a method for sharing web-based tools that teachers are using in their classrooms, schools or divisions. I was excited, but also nervous because I had a hard time finding information about how others structured these sessions. I also worried that because we hadn't done one before at the convention, only a handful of people would attend and, even worse, present. Luckily, my fears were not realized.

I started the session by polling the audience (polleverywhere.com) to see how many people had a site to share. This gave me a bit of an idea of how many tools I'd be presenting from me previously prepared slideshare (found here).

3 tools were introduced to begin the session that would be instrumental throughout the time. Resources were collected in a public Google Doc (found here) and tweeted out using the hashtag #seatcasmackdown. I also created a backchannel with Today's Meet for those who did not have Twitter. I was fortunate to have a friend, @MizMarrmalade (give her a follow), administrating the list and twitter feed.

Participants were great! Seven or eight participants presented their favourite web-based tools, along with examples of how they were being used in their schools. While many of us had seen these tools before, the greatest benefit came from sharing their educational uses (lots of A-HA moments). For a while, I was worried that I wouldn't get a chance to present any myself!

For the last 20 minutes, I was able to run through around 10-15 of my favourite web-based tools that I took out of my slideshare presentation (found here). The session was a success (at least that's how I felt)! Next year, maybe an App Smackdown?

Resources:
Web 2.0 Smackdown Presentation
Web 2.0 Seatca Smackdown List
Andy's Top 30ish Web 2.0 Tools