Like the Grateful Dead, adding a slice of cheese to Ichiban, or Crocs (okay, maybe not Crocs), I am an acquired taste.
This week, I presented at a conference, and days before, only five people had registered for one of the sessions (eleven for the second session). I was not too surprised because, as I said, I am an acquired taste. In fact, especially in some of my earlier presentations when I was presenting with a small team, we the presenters out-numbered the participants. (I did cancel another workshop back then because only two people signed up. I have no problem presenting to two people, but I could not justify the expense of the conference flying me up to present to two people who might or might not show up).
At this recent conference, the day of the conference the number of registrants for my sessions went up to ten for the first session and sixteen for the second. These were perfect numbers for me because, especially at the beginning of the session, there is a lot of interaction with me and the participants, so having the numbers below 20 is ideal.
Design Challenge
The biggest challenge of the day was actually the room I was assigned. Because my sign up numbers were low, the conference gave me a Learning Centre room (where, typically, teachers work with individuals or small groups). The room was small and odd shaped; think two bowling lanes wide with a knee-break angle. One half of ankle pants shape.
There were two standard-sized whiteboards I could project onto, though one had scheduling on part of it that I should not erase. Speaking of projection, the projector looked like it had never been used because it was dusty and still had the blue packaging tape on it. The projector was on a low cart with an extension cord that was two hole; the projector was three-prong, but I always bring a long three-hole extension cord (and an HDMI cable) with me, just in case. There was a pull-down screen but it was so far away from the wall and so far to one side of the classroom that only three people would have been able to see it.
In front of one of the whiteboards was a big teacher chair surrounded (rainbow-table style) by three rectangular tables. In front of the other whiteboard was another rectangular table and a couple of large round tables. In the second half of the room were a few rectangular tables, another round table, four full-sized teacher desks, and a couple of computer workstations for students.
When I saw the room and the arrangement, I was stunned. As a learning centre, it was an excellent room and arrangement. But as a presentation room? .... How was I going to fit 16 participants so they could all see the projected slides and hear my low voice in this kinky bowling alley space?
Then I realised: "Wasn't I the guy who liked to teach in irregular spaces and who liked the challenge of making spaces work for my style?" I looked at what I had to work with, and then I literally rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
Here is what the room looked like when I arrived:
What would you do with this space for a presentation?
Some things to consider:
- I needed at least 10 spots for the first session and 16 spots for the second.
- I needed everyone to see my slides.
- I needed to see everyone's faces.
- I wanted people to be able to write, so tables were necessary.
- The rectangular tables could fit two adults on one side, comfortably.
- The projector was short throw and no adjustable zoom (meaning in order to get a decent-sized, viewable image the projector needed to be about 1 metre away from the wall).
- I wanted to respect the teachers' desk area so I kept everyone away from that zone (cross hatched).
- Projector. Job 1 was to figure out where the projector was going to go. I decided on Whiteboard 1 because it had the deepest space in front of it. (I tried Whiteboard 2 first, but I realized because the room was long, narrow and kinked, I was going to have to swivel my head back and forth to talk to both sections of the room! I also tried the space in between the two whiteboards, but it was too small and was where the kink in the wall was, so my projected text and pictures looked you had taken mushrooms or something). Whiteboard 1 had some spots (dotted area) where participants would not be able to see the images.
- Me. I positioned the projector (brown square) so it would project on the right half of Whiteboard 1 and made the image as big as I could on the whiteboard. I put my laptop on the low round table (green) and mostly stood to the right of it when I was presenting, so everyone could see and I could point to things when needed. I did move around the room to run games, discussions, and activities, and used my remote clicker to advance slides.
- Participant Tables. I moved the rectangular tables in front of Whiteboard 1. I was able to get two rows by sliding them together or angling them so everyone had good sightlines. For the morning session, I moved two tables (x tables) out into the dotted area to keep my audience in one small, intimate section. The round tables were really inefficient because they took up too much space and had at least two participants' backs to the viewing area, so, as much as possible, I kept the round tables in the no view zone (dotted area).
- Other tables. I put student samples and recommended resources on the other round tables (m tables). At this particular conference, people had to sign an attendance sheet, so I moved one of the small student desks beside the door. It had the sign in sheet and some hand sanitizer.
