#TCEA16 Presentation Reflection

As I am writing this I am currently sitting in the "Digital Square" at TCEA here in Austin, Tx. It has been a great experience so far! I am learning a lot and have been meeting some really cool people along the way. Anyways, this past Tuesday I had an opportunity to present at an "iPad Academy Session" here at the conference. To give you some history about that, way back in April or May I submitted a proposal to present. After not hearing anything for over a month, I randomly get an email saying that I had been accepted to present in their "iPad Academy." This completely blew me away! The proposals that I have submitted in the past have been accepted before, however this one was a special one because it was an Academy session meaning that there would be a big crowd!

About 15 minutes before this presentation began, we had about 15 people in the audience. Not bad- we were meeting and greeting everyone, but in my mind I was like, "Okay, I have worked with smaller groups before in sessions, how could we tailor this session to best meet their needs?" Next thing you know, a huge rush storms our room! Before you knew it, we had about 150 people in the room! That had been the largest group I had ever spoken in front of before! I started to get a little nervous-- so nervous that I asked my co-presenter, "Am I starting off the session or are you?" (Even though we rehearsed it the day before!!)  After she kindly reminded me that I started the session, we got the ball rolling!

We had a blast! We explained how we used Pic Collage, Thinglink and SeeSaw on our campuses! Then, we gave them an opportunity to explore the apps themselves! Once we were done, it was such a relief! Many people came to greet myself and my co-presenter and told us how they were ready to start using these tools!!

I will never forget this experience!!