Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Shall we rethink Speeches?


Recently, I organized a successful EDTech day for teachers at my Board and instead of a Keynote, I took a chance and facilitated IGNITE presentations by our own teachers.  I got the idea from the ISTE conference which always has powerful and engaging IGNITE sessions. An IGNITE is basically 20 slides, 15 seconds/slide for a total of 5 minutes.  The topic?  Anything about which you are passionate.

As I prepared for my own IGNITE on being a Connected Educator, and then when a grade 9 student at one of our high schools agreed to present an IGNITE alongside her teacher, I began to think about this format as a great Oral Communication tool for students.

When George Couros (@gcouros) invited educators to post a teaching idea using #EDUin30 for week 1 (#EDUin30w1), using IGNITE to replace the speech--an oral communication task we've had our students do for the past million years--was the first thing I thought to share:

Why an IGNITE?

  • short and succinct
  • requires planning and practice
  • allows kids to express a passion
  • builds upon oral fluency and digital literacy skills
  • helps students create visual aids for their speaking
  • provides support for students with working memory issues
Get started with these resources.

The other day, a friend who was listening to our IGNITE presentations, was wondering the same thing:

If you're already doing this or if you are going to try it out in your class or school let me know, I'd love to hear how it goes.





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