I presented my project at the district Waiver Day on May 3rd. It went well. I had 33 participants (it filled up fast testifying to the fact that teachers want to learn ways to use and teach technology in their classrooms). My plan was to attach the presentation to the google docs but I had several technical issues when I was putting it together.
1st I have a MacBook and initially set up the presentation using Power Point. I knew I couldn't link to YouTube through the presentation because our district blocks the site so I downloaded and save them into a flash drive and embedded them into the Power Point. Polleverywhere.com polls do not work in any Mac products so I couldn't try that out. Everything else worked great. Then I took it into work and tried it there (Windows, Power Point 2003) Would not work. I had trouble with my avatars, the YouTube video, and with the embedded poll I finally figured out the poll but I had to reload several times. Even the night before when I was trying it once last time, I had to reload the poll. No problems during the actual presentation, thank goodness!
2nd My son-in-law has a Windows based laptop so he brought it over and we worked on the YouTube video. We got it to work and I thought everything was good. I took it into work and it didn't work. He has the newest version of PowerPoint and for whatever reason, it wouldn't work on the 2003 version. I went to the Microsoft website and found the instructions for embedding a video clip. Microsoft only supported the .avi version which is not great quality. The Mac used Quicktime which was another extension. I got it to work but again had to do it again the night before because it didn't work. No problems on the day of presentation!
So bottom line, I don't know if the version I put on Google docs will work. It is the Windows PowerPoint 2003 version.
Learnings - I am so glad that I tried it many times. There is still a lot of integration issues between operating systems and the different versions of software. I heard about another session given by someone who had technical issues because they didn't try it beforehand. It took a lot longer than I ever expected which can be very discouraging and many people would just give up. I took it as a challenge and wouldn't give up even though my husband banned any reference to this presentation ever!
We should introduce your husband to my wife. I've been banned from projects a few time by Loretta. I just won't quit until it works. That said, there are few of us in K-12 education. Baby steps are so important when working with teachers new to technology... many quit when they encounter the unexpected. I've been working with teachers using technology since the early '80's and sometimes dispair of the progress we've made since then but there is, indeed, progress. I applaud your efforts and your diligence in preparing for the presentation, a great deal of harm can be done via a tech preso that encounters technical problems (I've been there).
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