Have You Presented at a Large Conference Before? Any Suggestions?

This February I will be presenting at a state technology conference in Virginia. I've been to enough presentations to know what I don't like, and being the perfectionist that I am, I want to make sure I don't make those suffer who attend. I get these pictures in my mind of a bobbing head up front that sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher (the trumpet sound). What advice do you have for keeping your participants actively engaged? What did you do that was successful? Did you do anything that made you say, "I'll never do THAT again?" When you got your evaluations returned to you, did you learn something that can be shared with other presenters? Thanks ahead of time!

Tags: VSTE

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Permalink Reply by Michal on January 26, 2008 at 10:22am

One thing my & my co-presenters did when we flew to Georgia to present at a conference there was to wear specially designed t-shirts to help promote our session. Of course you really can't do this if you are a bit more conservative than I am!

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Permalink Reply by Brian on January 26, 2008 at 10:35am

What's funny is that my co-presenter and I have one section about why boys are bored with school ("treated like defective girls") and are wondering about looking UNconservative!

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Permalink Reply by Brian on February 27, 2008 at 5:33pm

I hope your emails get "pinged" with this response, for I wanted to say a hearty "thanks" for your suggestions and advice. I ran with your advice and applied it to the presentation, and the feedback was very positive. In fact, I was overwhelmed wih what folks had to say to me afterwards. A lot of my business cards were asked for afterwards, so I was glad that happened instead of having things thrown at me! Again, thank you all very much--you were a big help. (If this is the second time I wrote this, forgive me--I got interrupted and everything disappeared).

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 27, 2008 at 5:46pm

Did you do anything specific that you think made your presentation a success?

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Permalink Reply by Brian on February 27, 2008 at 5:53pm

The most common feedback that I got was that I had video nuggets from classrooms that showed my ideas actually being used in the classroom. Somebody else appreciated not being PowerPointed to death!