Point and Click

The premise of this blog is that I have some sort of weird aversion to adventure, and I wanted a place to explore that a little, and also do some writing and share some stories. Not all of my posts are about attempted adventures, of course, but that's the general expectation.

It seems like, though, I might also take a moment now and again to acknowledge some things I do that are in fact pretty adventurous, at least by other people's standards. For one, I am a high school teacher. Lots of folks would rather take a fork to the eye than hang out with teenagers and expect them to do school work. But I love teaching. And an extension of my teaching is another thing I love to do that even lots of teachers fear:

Presenting.

Give me an hour in front of a crowd and I'll whip up a string of activities and a slideshow lickety-split.

I did not know this about myself until 2004, when I became a Teacher Consultant with the Maine Writing Project. I sort of accidentally fell into it, and it changed.my.life. Ok, maybe not my life, but certainly my career. I attended the Summer Institute for teachers and one of our projects was presenting a workshop to the class. I had never done such a thing, but I threw myself into the planning, and ultimately produced my first workshop:

This is the cover sheet from my workshop presentation at my first conference, where people actually paid to take my workshop (and other people's, of course. I have yet to be the headliner, but a girl can dream*). The title is goofy, with my attempt at referencing The X-Files, which had already stopped airing in 2002. But it launched me. I loved it.

Since then I've presented at many Writing Project conferences as well as offered professional development at my school. Some of my favorites include:

At this conference, I discovered the Holy Grail of presenting, a presentation remote, which happened to exist in the room where I was presenting.

Playing games at a conference was definitely a hit!

This was my most recent presentation, on academic honesty, to my entire high school faculty.

After fourteen years, I finally got this baby:

This is my Logitech Spotlight Presentation Remote with Bluetooth, and it has really upped my presentation game. 

So I may be afraid of bugs, roller skating, riding a bike, and a host of other things, but give me a room full of teachers, a projector, and a presentation remote? And I am Queen of the World.

*I'm not really a bucket list sort of person. I don't want to skydive or hike the AT or scale Mount Rainier, but if anything is rolling around at the bottom of my figurative bucket, it's giving a Ted Talk. Maybe someday...