Edudemic

I was at the keynote and had mixed feelings. I cringed at the awkwardness of the slides, as most of us did, but in spite of the lack of sense of audience and poor slides, I thought that the content was critically important. I walked out at the end with a sense that our students are the "last best hope", and we are key to their mission.
I spoke with a fellow teacher fellow teacher from our school and we discussed ways that we could productively work with the 20 major issues with our students.
In my mind the point of a keynote is to be thought provoking. This one was for the right and wrong reasons.

I did not attend last Sunday's keynote. I tend to avoid keynote speeches in general because I don't care for them much, so it was an easy decision for me not to go to this one. However, I was made aware that things weren't going well long before the session ended.

I agree with Tim and Kathy's comments regarding the Twitter feeding frenzy that broke out during the speech. Constructive comments, both positive and negative can be helpful. However, many of the comments in question were really mean-spirited. Yes, the speaker needed to do his homework regarding the audience and yes, slides used need to be well designed. However, I fail to see how these provide an excuse for the remarks that were posted on Twitter.

Educators often express concern about allowing students to use microblogs and other Web 2.0 tools in class, stating that they fear students will make inappropriate remarks. How can we hold our children to a higher standard than we hold ourselves? Who models good online etiquette for our students if we don't?

If nothing else, I hope this incident helps us have a little more empathy the next time kids act like, well kids...

I was surprised at myself at my own behavior watching the keynote in the Blogger's Cafe and apologize for not being professional. However, I agree with Dean about the keynote speaker's presentation and delivery. It has nothing to do with PowerPoint. I was actually looking forward to learning from the speaker and about the topic. Not only were the slides unreadable, but I had trouble understanding him because he mumbled, talked in a monotone voice, and he kept turning his back to the audience. I even had trouble following the topic the way he presented it.

There have been so many good keynoters at ISTE that I was surprised at his performance and that he either was not prepared well or the selection committee never saw him present. We can learn from good and bad presentations, but what a shame for first time ISTE attendees. Hope they don't give up on attending in the future.

I wrote a post that evening about the opening keynote. In the post, I called myself out for my own behavior... but at the same time, I brought up the point that a keynote speaker at this level (opening speaker at ISTE!) should have done a little more research about his audience. Know to whom you are speaking and ensure your presentation speaks to that audience. I tell my students the same, and they're not paid presenters in front of an international audience.
I agree with Dean- the tool, in this case, PowerPoint was not the problem. The misuse of the tool was.

I agree with Dean: it's the how the content is framed and delivered, not the tool, that matters.

You've made some good point but I'd challenge your questioning of using PPT. Prezi, Keynote or any other medium can't save a bad talk. PPT is not the problem. I've seen wonderfully constructed slide decks with PPT and awful presentations using Prezi. It's about understanding the purpose of a slide deck to help tell a story.

My presentation at ISTE10 dealt with Twitter and developing one's PLN. After reading the stream of comments Sunday night, I felt compelled to mention that a Personal Learning Network of educators needed to stay professional in nature. (This was not originally in the presentation since I just assumed it would be so!)

Some of the comments about the keynote were negative but not mean, and just stated the tweeter's opinion. The mean ones were the ones that scared me-- and also caused me to take a big breath before reviewing the Twitter stream after my presentation in front of a packed house. Constructive criticism has its place, as it always has, but nasty comments should be avoided, IMHO.

Thank you for a wonderful post. While the Sunday evening keynote may have been a negative experience for many there, the constant flow of negative comments on Twitter and Facebook only went to show how childish and unprofessional we can sometimes be online (that would include me at times as well). It has been my experience that when you get a group of educators together in workshops and other PD, we revert to being just like the disruptive kids in our own classrooms. It makes one wonder what the backchannel of our own classrooms would look like. I may try just that this year. How scary would that be?

I like Tim's challenge of opening a back channel to one's own classroom. That would be a scary experience indeed. I was truly fascinated by the Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Buzz, and Plurk posts about this keynote. I was not in attendance, but can tell you that I certainly learned a lot. I feel badly for the speaker since he clearly did not grasp the nature of his audience or the expectations they hold for professional learning. In another conference, his message AND delivery may have been appreciated. I strongly agree with Kathy. We (educators) are, like it or not, always models of behavior. I fear that the ed tech community did not put their best foot forward in their chosen responses to the keynote.