NCSPOD "GIFT" Sessions

GIFT is an acronym and a play on words. You share a Great Idea for ....Teaching? Faculty Topics? I forget what it stands for - Anyway it's clever. They set up 7 or 8 tables and somewhere between 60 and 100 people came in and distributed themselves at tables, organizers rang a bell and presenters had 10 minutes to share their project, experience or item of expertise. Then the bell rang again, groups shifted to different tables, and the presenters went through it again - repeating the excercise 5 times (+/-). Something like speed dating meets the Old-School lecture.

It turned out to be amazingly fun, and the cruising learners/ customers/ datees(?) seemed to have a blast. Intense in a good way, without enough time to get boring, the topics and format seemed to pique everyone's interest and motivate self-directed learning. Several presenters noted how they really honed there presentation through the process. I aimed for that and admire their success. Our table however seemed to get more interactive and the center of gravity moved toward the group. Not planned but not unwelcome. I recorded audio of our last 3 sessions and I'm thinking about posting them as a sort of reflection/ meta-analysis of the evolution of the experience. It may be interesting to dissect it, look at how it evolved, and consider implications for professional development. . .

I ran out of handouts and promised to post them on a wiki. They're up. Also posted are pages with more info. I'd like to see other people post material there as well. Presenters had intriguing stuff - and no one can be everywhere at once. Don't worry about making mistakes - anything lost can be found again. Password to edit is KCPDC08 -the last two characters are numbers. Many hands make light work, and an archive could help a lot of people - me in particular. If you haven't posted to the web by yourself yet - ya gotta do it.

AND/ OR post links in comments to this blog. I saw people shooting video of the Poster sessions with Flip cameras, and rumor has it they will be posted to the web - if you know where tell me. I'll post a link when I find it.