I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to ask teachers–overworked, underappreciated, underpaid–to give up some of the precious time to check out the stuff that geeks just salivate over naturally… but I’ve had pretty good luck at my school so far. Best case scenario is that you steal a little time from one of those Staff Development Days that has the unfortunate tendency to be a little dreary; people are MORE than happy to come hang out for a little while. Anything but another motivational speaker, please!
But I’ve had some luck with the teachers I work with. Most of our hands-on workshops happen after school, 3:15-4:15 or so, and we typically get 8-15 people attending from our faculty of 120+, which isn’t bad considering it’s all voluntary. I don’t skimp on the refreshments–I figure it’s the least I can do to honor my guests. Bottled Starbuck’s frappacinos, chips, candy, an ice chest full of sodas and bottled water… Maybe someday I’ll have the courage to ask my tech director to compensate me for the grocery bill.
Today, though, was a surgical strike. Bring your lunch and hang out in a dark room for fifteen minutes while I run through my favorite features in the new Leopard OS X. I’m shameless: I sent out an email to the school last week, sent out a reminder email yesterday, and targeted individuals that I thought might enjoy it.
Next thing you know, there’s a roomful of people hanging out and watching 3-way iChats and the gee-whiz Time Machine interface. It was great!
Tomorrow, I’ve got an afterschool presentation to the Middle School on “non-interactive whiteboards,” a warm-up for the presentation at the CUE conference in Monterey in a few more weeks…