How it went

I'm back in Toyama after having survived my first ever presentation. It was such an intense experience! From throwing up the day before, to having to redo many slides due to lack of Internet access (only to finally figure out how to connect a few hours before, thus having to frantically redo slides again at the last moment), to there being WAY more people attending than I had expected (and thus not having enough handouts), to the presence of CALL experts such as Bill Pellowe and Arron Campbell (both of whom I featured in various slides)... wow, it was all too much.

I was so nervous that I don't know how I got through it, but somehow I managed. I had sort of an "out of body" experience, with a feeling of watching myself detachedly as these words came out of my mouth. Seriously, it was a surreal feeling. In addition, I seriously over-prepared, and had to really rush at the end, nearly completely skipping over the "Social Networking" section altogether (thus negating all of that last minute panic work).

After it was all said and done, several folks came up and graciously offered me some kind words. That felt immensely fantastic. A couple of dear friends were also able to be there, and it meant all the world to me. I learned a lot from this experience, and I look forward to presenting on a related topic again next year. Next time I won't attempt such a grandiose theme and focus instead on something smaller and more practical. For example, I could do a session just on simple social networking applications, making up for what I missed...

Anyway, I'm grateful to all who attended, and I'm looking forward to continuing my investigations on this topic. There's a lot here I can work with, and already some ideas are coming to mind. I'll be using this blog to work these out.

For anyone interested, I've updated the presentation references. The pdf file can be downloaded here, via the link on the right, or from the JALT 2007 Handout Center. This paper contains links to all of the articles, resources, and websites mentioned in the talk.

Oh, and one other thing: in my nervousness, I failed to operate my digital recorder properly, and I got nothing!! Strangely I'm not too broken up about this. I'm busy at work now on a video slideshow version of it, so give me a week and a day or so to get that posted. I'm currently mulling over a few options, such as posting it over at VoiceThread so I can continue a conversation about it.

 

Finally, I'm especially grateful to my co-workers at TCFL for all of their help and support. Couldn't have done it without you!