Personal Learning Network-Presentations

Last Friday, I had our first group of students present on their personal learning network. I used this rubric to evaluate their presentation as well as had the class access the student blog he/she was referencing to leave real time comments about the presentation( we pulled up the blog and had it appear via our overhead projectors). While the student was speaking, the class reacted to the presentation. The instantaneous feedback the students provided was valuable to the presenter. If a classmate did not feel comfortable offering oral feedback in our class debriefing, the evaluator could reference his/her blog and see what reactions the class had to the presentation. Here are some examples:

seanb said...
Brandon good job presenting. you had a clear voice and didnt studder or fidget. But next time try and be more descriptive and dont fade off reading the story.

laurene said...
brandon! Good job on your presentation. Your pace on your speaking was good and slow so I could really understand you. Your eye contact with the class was also good. I also really liked how you compared your article with your history class and your english class and you went into details with how they relate to the article. I also think that you should try not to fade off win speaking and try to speak a little clearer, but other than that good job.

berekm said...
Anna, You did a good job speaking loud and clear so everyone can hear. I liked your relations with the story about taking pictures of landscapes. I think its funny that you thought New Jersey was New York. I agree with you becuase people do take the easy way out and also students do it too. I understood everything you said and i agreed with the getting pictures online. You looked up while you read and talked to the class as if you memorized the writing. You added an interestin personal aspect to your presentation, good job.

avereel said...
Anna, I really enjoyed your presentation. You really got into detail about how it connects to the world and to yourself. You were so calm about presnting, you were so brave to go first! I totally agree with what you said, too many times, we do take the easy way out. I haven't read My Flickr Conundrum, but your presentation made me really interested. Good job!

annies said...
Alex! Good job explaining the article. I agree because students in the US should have a high literacy rate, and then people will see them as "Kids of the future". But i think it could have been a little longer, and you could have related it to the world and yourself. But otherwise, good job!

Xavia H2011 said...
If you have your notes, try not to look back and forth to the screen and your notes, just choose on. Good job though, your blog was well explained and it was good how you related it to yourself. Try to make it a little longer to.

I also asked for the presenter to add an additional blog entry to their personal blog critiquing his/her presentation. I think it is important for them to reflect on their preparation as well as evaluate their delivery and effect of the presentation. Thinking out loud, it might be interesting to do some goal setting before their presentation on what they hope to achieve in their personal blog and then assess that piece afterward in a reflection blog. Here are some examples of their personal reflections:

Anna K, Overall, Friday's presentation was pretty good, but I still need to work on not sounding so nervous and fidgeting so much. I think I did a good job at keeping eye contact with everyone and not talking to fast which I normally do.

Josh TS, For my next presentation I would like to do a few things diferently, first of all I would liek to be more prepaired with note cards instead of reading off the screen. I would also have like dto have a longer presentation

Alex E., After presenting my PLN in class, i think that i didn't prepare enough, by practising talking and have the materials needed, and my writing didn't have enough detail in it and could have been longer. Also i could have spoke up more and made more eye contact, and work on not saying "ummm" and "like" so much. But besides that i have learned from my mistakes and now i know how to prepare for my next presentation

We have some work to do on the reflection side, but hopefully we will get to some honest feedback on what they did and how they can improve after we practice what good reflection looks like. I am also going to add podcasts of their presentations to their own blogs as well as to Learning and Laptops for them to reflect on. I think this is a valuable piece to a reflective evaluation be hearing what you sound like when speaking in front of a group.

Some changes I decided to make to the presentations after conferencing with Jessie Comp about her classes presentations were that the students need to speak about all their blog postings. I am not sure how this will work out once they have numerous entries but I like the freedom it grants them in their presentation. Also, I am asking the presenter to create follow up questions to their presentation to create a post-presentation dialogue with the class. After all, one of my focus points for creating a Personal Learning Network is to get my students talking about issues that are relevant to them. Jessie had great success with this in her class and I am hoping to create the same dialogues in my class.