Elevator pitch to find partners

Hello everybody!

These days I was looking for partners to join them and contribute with my Open Educational Project (OEP). I looked among lots of projects such as The other kids EDU, the ESL times, the Twima project, Maderas que son violines, Piratas y Libélulas, No me cuentes historias, ¡dibújamelas!, etc. Then, I asked myself: where could I fit with my project of natural science about plants? Then, the 30 Goals Challenge caught my attention. It is a web site carried by Shelly Terrell, an enthusiastic and active teacher trainer and e-learning specialist. In her web site I found a challenge about Revamping a lesson. The goal is "improve a lesson plan or activity to create a meaningful learning experience for your students." So, I took the challenge and I revamped my whole OEP following her suggestions to do it: 

Retrieved from http://www.30goals.com/

• "Transform the lesson into a learning mission. 
• Add a technology component.
• Add some humor to the lesson.
• Bring your textbook to life.
• Make the lesson more hands-on.
• Get students moving.
• Change the environment.
• Start the lesson in a new way."

Then, I decided to take all her ideas and incorporate them into my OEP. Moreover, taking into account that one of the challenges was "bring your textbook to life", I remembered visiting the project InfoEDUgrafías which encourages you to use computer graphics. Computer graphics are visual displays of data made on a computer. So, I thought that doing computer graphics could be a way to "bring the textbook to life". 

Retrieve from http://infoedugrafias.blogspot.com.es/

PROCEDURE TO JOIN A RUNNING PROJECT

As a consequence, I revamped all my OEP, I changed all the activities that I had planned for my students. If you do not remember my OEP, click here. So, I have summarized my new lesson plan in a document that I uploaded to Issuu again. How you can show your documents once you have embedded them in your post is wonderful. I highly recommend Issuu to upload documents. 

According to my work about infoEDUgrafías, in my OEP, I do not use any textbook because I will use some computer graphics that I made using the web site Piktochart, which I find so useful for learners and teachers. It is so easy to use specially if you have used Genial.ly previously, because the web page template, tools, and options are so similar. Perhaps the greatest benefit of it is that you can download your infographics. Here you go an example that I created to my OEP:

Once done all the changes to fit with a partner/s, I decided to do an elevator pitch to catch the attention of my future partner/s. An elevator pitch is a short discourse which will lead to a deeper dialogue about what you can offer. It should last no longer than a short elevator ride from 20 to 30 seconds. 

To do it I did a draft about my discourse since I just had 20 seconds, a short period of time in which I wanted to tell many things about my project. I follow the next ideas to do the draft:

• Make a catching start point using questions to catch the attention of the audience. 
• Define the problem of my discourse.
• Explain the solution and the main point of my project.
• Tell what I pretend with my elevator pitch. 

So, taking into account that, I did this draft that you can see here. I used GoogleDrive to do it. 

Here you go the result. 

To do the video I used the tool iMovie again. Firstly, I used WeVideo which I found a pretty good program although it is free just 90 days. Despite that fact, it offers many options and special effects to add to your video. However, the final video had a big watermark which distracted the attention and covered part of my face. So, using iMovie was the right idea because I have it and to do an elevator pitch is perfect: easy to use and with eye-catching results. Anyway, an elevator pitch should be short and simple, so I just needed to add my blog in order that my future partner/s will be able to see my project. I strongly believe that iMovie is excellent and I recommend it. 

Eventually, I wrote some positive feedback to my hopefully future partners InfoEDUgrafías and the 30 Goals Challenge in their web pages.

REFLECTION

Doing this post was quite challenging because I had to incorporate different types of collaboration in the classroom as well as the requirements of the goal (which were about 8 different challenges). I started this whole project two weeks ago, even before than doing my previous post or challenge. Now I am feeling quite proud once I have incorporated all that issues into my project which I thought I would be impossible, but I planned different activities taking into account all those ideas and techniques. Actually, it was like a jigsaw. 

My elevator pitch might seem quite simple but it took me many rehearsals to get to the final discourse. I memorized my draft which also took many minutes but I consider I spoke about all the main points of my project. Furthermore, I believe that it is quite attractive. On the other hand, I realized how difficult is to prepare an elevator pitch since at first sight it might seem easy to speak just 20 seconds, but when you were working really hard on your project, 20 seconds is not enough at all. 

I must admit that elevator pitches are a great idea to do with students because rehearsing is essential in order to improve thinking and language skills. 

Without my being aware of it, I created a project which will fit in two of the running projects that I have mentioned above. As a result, I feel so satisfied with it. Now I hope they accept my as a partner because I tried to do my best. 

Finally, I would like to add that it was a pleasure to discover wonderful current projects with awesome teachers who are changing the education system right now. I was not conscious about all this. I have to admit that I am so impressed and hopeful. 

And do not forget,

Be clever, be greener!