Why do I do this to myself...Presentation Woes...

I have the worst trait possible for a teacher.  I am absolutely terrified about speaking in public.  About an hour before a presentation, I start to pace.  Then, I'm nauseated.  I start randomly talking to myself.  Never a good sign.  It's worse though when it gets to the point that I start talking back.  I find myself losing the argument!  I'm sure I look like an absolute crazy person.  I'm surprised people don't take one look at me when they enter the room and run the other way.

Once a year, my school division holds a division wide PD day.  For some reason, I agreed to offer a presentation and once I did that, the stress was on.  What topic do I do?  Finally, I came up with my two favorites:  math and technology.  Ok.  Topic done.  Now, I need a fancy title and a description.  Hmmm...How about..."Teching up the Math classroom".  Well, it's not fancy but it works.  Wrote out a quick description and sent it off.  Now's the hard part.  What do I want to include?  It would have been so easy to include a list of Web 2.0 tools that I've used but I knew some people were attending because I use Smart Notebook Math and they wanted to learn that as well.  I also knew some wanted to find out more about the virtual graphing calculator I use.  Ok.  Well, that's easy enough.  Two topics covered.  The calculator would be quick but I'd be able to spend all day on Math Notebook so I need to be careful not to go over board.  But what else?  Hmmmm....Another focus I wanted to cover was how to include review games using the smartboard that would involve everyone.  Too many activities focus on only one student at a time.  When I was on the SmartTech website, I found a Jeopardy game that was created using the Senteo clickers.  Excellent!  (We have 2 older students sets and 1 elementary set so I knew this would be a great addition to my classroom).  But wait, what about the teachers who don't have Senteos?  Easy.  They could do it the way I do other review games.  Students write their answers on mini whiteboards and hold those answers over their head all at the same time.  I also decided to include another very basic review board game I had made up myself.  No questions were included, just the board game but in class, I always made the questions up on the spot.  This way, you didn't have to make up 25 questions like in the Jeopardy game.

So this is how my presentation went:

1. Virtual Ti-83 Plus calculator and how to maximize it.
2. Digital Cameras (and my sample "Lines in My Life" project)
3. Screencasting software (Jing vs Screencast-o-matic)
4. Jeopardy Game using senteos (Showed my Pure Math 30 Trigonometry Unit 1 game)
5. Review Board Game (that I made up myself)
6. Smart Notebook Math (spent a lot of time exploring these tools)
7. My new Google Site for Math 10C.  (Which I will use next semester as I'm not teaching Math 10C yet).
8. We even talked about how to create an interactive whiteboard with a wii remote, bluetooth, special pen and a piece of softare. 

So, my presentation wasn't fancy.  (I'm definitely no @scorgo for personality.)  I didn't want to overwhelm the participants with a lot of information and wanted to leave time to further explore any of the tools they asked about. 

Which reminds me, I promised them I would send them my notebook files of the presentation, review board game, Jeopardy games and Ti-83 plus virtual calculator software.

Will I present again?  Probably.  Each time I do it, it gets a little easier.  I turn a little less green, pace a little less.  Will they want me back is the question...and if they do, what on earth will I present about?