When my lecturers Pete Yeomans and Oliver Quinlan asked over Christmas if any of our class fancied a free trip to BETT in January, I jumped at the chance. But there was a catch – give a two minute presentation at a TeachMeet.
Anyone who knows me will know that on my own I am confident, and in a group I am confident, but put me in front of a room of people and I would lose all of that confidence – especially in front of a room full of people who have been teaching for years and know what they are talking about!
However, I wanted that free ticket and I thought here was a chance that I may not be given again and I would be silly not to take it. So, I set about coming up with an idea of something to present that I could fit in to two minutes and decided Kodu would be the best option. If you have read my previous blog posts, you will know that I went in to school on three occasions last term to teach Kodu to two Year Five classes and a Year Three class.
As the BETT fair was the location of the Teach Meet, Kodu seemed a good choice of subject to talk about and hopefully introduce to those who hadn’t heard of it, or explain further to those who had.
In December I was one of two of Pete and Oliver’s students picked to go to Olympia and there began my weeks of being a nervous wreck! At times I was thinking of excuses that Pete might accept for me to drop out but I managed to convince myself that I was capable of getting up in front of so many people – but I was worried that they wouldn’t care what I had to say – I was wrong!
Along came Friday 13th January (yes… this didn’t help with the worry that I may fail!) and I made my way to Olympia to take in what BETT had to offer. I expected to be amazed but I didn’t quite expect the amount of stalls, and the diversity of some of the products available and was overwhelmed as I walked around the stalls and was introduced to very interesting people.
One of my highlights were the Siftables on the RM stand which Pete will hopefully be getting for us to try!
We went on to the Teach Meet at 6:30ish and I didn’t really know what to expect. There were a lot of people there and I spent the most part of the evening worrying about having to get on stage. As the order of talks was randomly generated, I began the evening thinking that maybe I would be lucky enough to escape having to talk!
I enjoyed all of the talks, and there was such a range of different things being spoken about. I spent the break mingling and talking to some really interesting people who I hope to stay in touch with.
Emma went up to speak and she did such a good job that it made me realise that actually I wanted to go up there! But, it came to 9:20pm and I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get a chance to speak. I was disappointed, I had come a long way and had finally managed to persuade myself that I could do it!
Luckily Pete had stepped in without me knowing and had organised with Dawn Hallybone for me to be able to speak (thanks Pete and Dawn!) The two minutes passed in a blur and it was over before I knew it – I was amazed at the reaction of people clapping but also at the numerous tweets that I had received congratulating me, and at the number of people who came up to talk to me afterwards, either to congratulate me or to ask me more about Kodu.
The Teach Eat was more of the same – being able to speak to people who had such interesting things to say and who also wanted to know more about my talk – my confidence was really brought up a few levels by the Teach Meet and I can’t wait to attend another – perhaps just to watch this time though!
Here is the video of my talk...
