Blogging in My Head

Posted on November 23, 2012 by megangraff

I do most of my blogging in my head. (That’s my excuse for there being so few posts on my blogs.) I blog in my head while walking to school and on buses, in line at the grocery store, in the shower, lying in bed and so on. But then I get in front of the computer, I check Twitter, Facebook, email, read a heap of articles etc and never get back to the posts floating around in my head.

My friend, Edna (@whatedsaid), who has a great blog, really hoped I’d blog more when I was in Tanzania but it didn’t happen. I thought it would. I figured I would have empty evenings that would lend themselves to composing posts but no. I filled them hanging out with friends or waiting for webpages to load (the bandwidth was painfully slow). I blogged in my head but that’s as far as it got.

I know that part of the problem is that I like blog posts that have pictures and videos and links to all sorts of interesting connected and tangential articles and posts but it takes time to put together those sorts of posts.

After an exchange on twitter in early October about blogging in ones’ head between myself, Edna and Tanja (@tgaletti), Edna sent us both an email suggesting that maybe it would be less daunting if we set up a collaborative PYP T-L blog as we could invite others to contribute thereby relieving the pressure to post more frequently. (How exactly I could blog less frequently than I currently do is a bit of an enigma…) My reaction to the email? I read it, marked it unread and it is still in my priority inbox waiting for me to do something with it. While I appreciate Edna’s encouragement to blog more and appreciate her suggestions of a possible solution, the thought of a third blog for me to neglect is too daunting. (The other blog I currently neglect can be found here.)

Two nights ago, I sent Edna a tweet with the topic of my most recent in my head blog post: “gateway” books (ex. Captain Underpants and Rainbow Magic). She suggested I should bite the bullet and blog seeing as I had also tweeted about spending an hour replying to an email and said that the blog posts (that one and this one) wouldn’t take nearly as long. I did end up blogging that night but not about gateway books or blogging in my head. Instead I wrote about thoughts raised by the email I sent and posted it on my other blog.

Tonight Edna commented on that post and passed it along to Clive, Sir (@clivesir) who had the audacity to call me annoying saying I don’t blog enough. 😉 Well it worked. Two blog posts have made it from inside my head to outside in 3 days. I wonder when the next one will emerge… and will it be about gateway books or some other as yet unknown topic? In any case, don’t hold your breath.

In One Year…

Posted on August 26, 2012 by megangraff

In one year, I…

…met many people at St. Jude’s. Said goodbye to some who were here when I arrived, greeted those who arrived after me and said goodbye to those who left before me.

…made friendships that I hope will endure as more than the occasional post on Facebook as well as ones of that sort.

…encouraged over 500 students to read more.

…arranged an author visit that inspired many student writers and illustrators.

…cooked lunch over an open fire in a hut where goats sleep at night.

…only visited Gentle Hands once (and that was my only plane trip all year as well).

…took many dala dalas and a few local buses but never took a piki piki.

…ate makande more than I would have liked and enjoyed ugali more than I would have thought (the pili pili made all the difference).

…received lots of praise for my brownies.

…took more screenshots (while creating library procedure documents) than I am likely to ever take in my life.

…realized you can wear the same clothes over and over and not be bothered by it.

…stayed connected in spite of limited bandwidth.

…barely blogged at all.

…learned lots about managing colleagues (and even more about myself as a manager).

…lived simply and didn’t acquire many new possessions.

…came to appreciate electricity, running hot and cold water, and indoor plumbing.

…didn’t catch malaria or typhoid and had no major illnesses or health issues.

…swapped the mold of Singapore for the dust of Arusha.

…learned just enough Swahili to greet people and make them think I spoke it more than I do.

What will the next year bring?

Field Trip to the Kenyan Border

Posted on October 2, 2011 by megangraff

Note: I’m posting this without photos or links because my internet has been down all morning and is still cutting in and out. I did put the photos in a Picasa web album that can be found here.

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to join 4 grade six classes who have been studying human migration on a field trip to the Kenyan border.

We loaded on to three of the smaller school buses taking along buckets of drinking water, food, dishes and spoons. The students were doubled and tripled up in the seats and some were even sitting on the buckets in the aisles. Once everyone was ready, a student led us in a short prayer and we set out at about 9:15 am.

Before we departed it was announced that since we couldn’t bring along the chai that is usually served at morning break we would stop to buy juice and biscuits along the way. We stopped at one grocery store and several teachers who were on the other buses went in and came out fairly quickly. After another few kilometres we stopped for much longer at another grocery store, as it turned out they had been unsuccessful at the first. This time we had to wait for around 20 minutes but they did get what we needed.

Namanga is around 120 km from the school and the road is fairly decent. However by the time we got there, it was later than expected (nearly noon) and the immigration officer who was supposed to be our host was nowhere to be found. A couple teachers went off to see what they could do while we unloaded the students and set up to have snack. Buckets of water and cups were unloaded to set up hand washing stations and some of the students passed maandazi, biscuits and juice boxes to the others as they filed by the windows of one of the buses. I rustled up an empty box for the rubbish but the students quickly explained that it was ok to throw it in shallow pit where other things had obvious been burned. I chatted with students while various reports about the status of our guide trickled in – he had gone to the mosque to pray, he had gone home, there was another official who was willing to fill in but he wanted to know what was in it for him. I never did find out what the actual story was but eventually one man did give us a tour. In the meantime, I had learned the Swahili word for fart (jamba, not to be confused with jambo – hello), had a conversation with one student about why he plans to marry a mzungu (foreigner) instead of a Tanzanian (which included him gesturing to his schoolmates and saying, “These girls know my behavior.”), my marital status, age and why I didn’t have children, and plans for the student who wants to marry a foreigner to come to the library at recess the next day for a French lesson. The boys were quite disappointed that I had never met a premier league footballer face to face and that I didn’t even recognize most of the names of their favourite players let alone know which teams they played for.

Our tour started with the students gathered under a tree while the immigration official filled them in on the different sorts of passports and travel documents they issue to Tanzanians. The students carefully took notes and asked pertinent questions. Next each class filed into the departure office one at a time and as various people came in to get their passports stamped into to exit Tanzania the students stood behind the official on duty. He showed them what appeared on his computer screen as he scanned passports, let a student try the fingerprint machine and showed them immigration cards and the like. When the line got long, our guide also took care of some of the people and also provided a running commentary of what he was doing. Meanwhile I was merrily snapping photos of the proceedings. I still can’t believe we were allowed on the other side of the counter and that it was fine to take photos.

After each class had had a turn, we gathered together and walked out of Tanzania, across a short “no man’s land” and crossed into Kenya. Our guide went and found a Kenyan official who was willing to come out and answer a few questions for our students. I started to take some photos but some students were quick to point out that there was a no photos sign in front of the building.

We returned to Tanzania, loaded back on the buses and set out for school. After about 20 minutes or so on the road, we pulled over to have a late lunch (it was 3:30 pm by this time). Again hand washing stations were set up and some students set to dishing out plates of pilau (rice with bits of vegetables). One of the bus drivers filled a plate and passed it to a young Maasai boy sitting by the road. Another boy arrived a bit later, after all the food had been passed out but several of us contributed some of ours and we were able to give him a plate too. The driver also filled a 1.5 L bottle with water for each of them. A little later two Maasai men come along on bicycles with empty jugs draped over the backs. The students filled the jugs with our leftover drinking water. I’m not sure how they knew to come by.

We piled back on the buses and set out again. The students were energized by the lunch and it was a loud rowdy trip the rest of the way. By the time we dropped them off at the boarding houses it was 6 pm. It was one of the longest, dustiest field trips I have ever been on and I was exhausted. However the words of one of the immigration officers resonated with me. He was very impressed by the students’ questions and knowledge about the immigration process and had a long conversation with one of our teachers about the international curriculum and teaching methods that are being used at the school. The conversation ended with the official declaring that in 10 years time the students will bring about change in Tanzania that will move the country forward.

A New Adventure

Posted on September 4, 2011 by megangraff

I have recently moved to Arusha, Tanzania to be a volunteer teacher-librarian at the School of St. Jude. So far I haven’t managed to blog much but I did post a piece with some details here.

“Lit Circles? Awesome!”

Posted on March 26, 2011 by megangraff

Photo: Heping Village Primary School, Dongxiang County. Gansu province, China. Classroom. 2005 Photo: © Liang Qiang / World Bank. Used under a CC license.

Literature circles are on the long-range plans for our grade three students and most teachers start them in January. Last year, when I was scheduled to work with specific grade levels for certain blocks of time, I worked with our seven grade 3 classes when “lit circles” were introduced. Several teachers modeled the roles using picture books and one chose several picture books by one author (Graeme Base) at different levels for groups she chose to work with but most chose novels or quickly moved on to novels. Some let their students choose the novel or created a group that then chose the novel they would work on.

This year, my schedule is slightly different. I see all my classes once every two weeks which leaves me some flexible time when teachers can book me to co-teach their class or to work with them one-on-one during a planning period. About a month ago, one of the grade three teachers approached me to ask if I would be willing to help with lit circles again this year. I suggested we start using a picture book to model the circles and instead of switching straight to novels we have kept going. The enthusiasm among the students has been overwhelming! The quote I used as a title for this post is just an example of the positive feedback we have had from them. Last week at the request of another teacher (she is a very experienced teacher but had never used literature circles), I began working with her class. Her students are also extremely engaged and very excited about the process. (I have heard a rumour that a third teacher may be approaching me soon as well.)

Here is how we went about introducing literature circles using picture books with the first class and how we will be proceeding in other classes (with possible adjustments along the way – of course!):

Lesson 1 (~60 min): Talk about literature circles with the students (I compare them to my book club) and introduce the roles. There are many different roles and the titles for them vary – my most recent class chose:

Discussion Director – writes down “fat” questions to ask group members and leads the circle
Passage Picker – picks a passage(s) from the reading, reads it to the group and explains why they chose it
Word Wizard – chooses words from the story for a variety of reasons – new, interesting, vivid verbs, descriptive – looks them up in the dictionary if they are new to them, and shares the words and the reasons they chose them
Cool Connector – makes 3 types of connections to events in the story (text to self, text to text and text to world) and shares them
Artist (these students didn’t feel the need for a descriptor – personally I like “Illustrious Illustrator”) – chooses a part of the story to illustrate and share

Read a picture book aloud (I’ve used Graeme Base’s Jungle Drums a few times and it has gone over very well) and as a group complete the task for each role with the exception of artist.

Lesson 2 (~60 minutes): Let the students know that they will have their choice of one of the first 4 roles for a different picture book that you will read aloud. The teacher pre-selects 4 students to be part of a model lit circle during the third lesson. Read the book aloud, students complete their chosen task in their language notebooks. Some students may require extra time to complete their task and those that finish could also tackle the role of artist. Before the next lesson, the teacher reads over the completed written work of all students.

Lesson 3 (~30 minutes): Using a fish bowl model (or Socratic Circle if you want to be fancy), whereby the four students sit together knee-to-knee and the rest of the class sits in a circle around them, help the four chosen students run a literature circle. You can cut each job short if everyone seems to have grasped the task and “freeze” the lit circle to allow the input of those in the outer circle. I emphasize that I am not part of the circle; I am just there to support them.

Lesson 4 (~60 minutes): Pre-select a number of picture books of which you have at least 2 copies (4 is optimal). The number of titles can match the number of groups you will have but I like to have more variety than that. Briefly book-talk each one and then have the students select the one they would like to read – we set them out around the classroom so students could stand by the book of their choice. In one class, the teacher told the students there had to be 2 girls and 2 boys in each group. Once a book has 4 students, roles are selected and the group reads the book aloud together. Teachers can circulate and listen in on several groups or chose a particular group to sit with. As in lesson 2, students then complete their chosen task in their language notebooks and before the next lesson, the teacher reads over the completed written work of all students. Again we have let students who completed their task quickly also do an illustration.

Lesson 5: Now it is time to sit with each group as they run their lit circle. It often works well to have the class engaged in other independent work and call each group over one at a time. This could be done over the course of several days.

Repeat lessons 4 and 5 until each student has had the chance to complete each of the four roles. This means the groups change with each book and by the fourth round it can be a bit tricky to have everyone doing a new role. In one class we had a group with two word wizards and no discussion director so instead everyone in the group came up with 2 fat questions before completing their own role.

Do you have any literature circles tips to share?

Happy reading!

One Sunday Morning on Twitter

Posted on September 26, 2010 by megangraff

Soundtrack for this post: Hello Beautiful Life – Skydiggers

There are many educators (and others) who are skeptical about the value of Twitter. This morning, several things occurred that would not have, had I not been on Twitter as I did other work on the computer.

1. I made a plan to visit Edna Sackson (@whatedsaid) at her school when I am in Melbourne in April.

This came about because I made a comment to a couple of teachers who had already commented her blog post 10 things you can’t just do on Monday in period 6… I arrived at the post because someone tweeted the link with a comment but unfortunately I don’t remember who that was.

As you can see we are both excited!

2. I exchanged tweets with my brother, Evan, a high school history teacher. In the process, I became aware that tech integration (which many of us are advocating for in elementary schools vs standalone ICT classes that teach skills isolation) isn’t the best model for secondary unless the students are digitally literate.

The conversation started over my tweeting a quote from the same blog post as above:

Evan replied and here’s how it played out:

And along the way Edna chimed in and included a link to a blog post by Iain Guest (@IaninSheffield) about discrete vs embedded ICT lessons.

Guess what?

And so does he!

3. I helped an HS special education teacher in Manila make professional connections.

Evan had mentioned that his colleague was having a hard time finding other special education teachers to connect with and he was encouraging him to try Twitter. He convinced Kevin to sign up (@KGStroudlusk) and I started sending him suggestions of people to follow. Within a few days, Kevin sent out this tweet:

One of my suggestions was Shawn Ram (@sram_socrates), a spec-ed teacher in Alberta. We exchanged a few tweets and I told him about Evan’s quest to help Kevin.

And he has been posting links to pass on and using his connections to send more suggestions to Kevin.

(The link goes to this site)

Tomorrow Evan is going to help Kevin set up a Twitter client so he can more easily follow some of Shawn’s suggestions.

4. I helped my brother build his argument to take to his admin about why Facebook should not be blocked at his school.

Evan wrote this blog post and tweeted about it:

I checked it out and sent this message out:

With minutes, one of my tweeps had sent it out as well:

And within a few hours, Evan had several comments on his post.

5. I got invited to be our school rep for a student film fest being put together by international schools here in Singapore.

If I hadn’t had a connection with Tyler (one that started and continues on Twitter though we’ve now met face-to-face a few times), he wouldn’t have thought of me.

6. I followed the tweets of some teachers who were in Hong Kong at an ICT in the PYP workshop.

Adding #ICTinPYP to their tweets, allowed me to follow along and see what different people were saying – not as good as being at the workshop in person but I did get some good ideas, I was able to share some of mine and this tweet about the wiki they worked on made me very happy!

So after a few hours of all of this, I tweeted:

To which my brother replied:

Back to School – NOT! (or What I Learned While Sick at Home)

Posted on September 4, 2010 by megangraff

I tried to start the school year. I went to work for the full week before the students came back; I went to staff meetings, team meetings and collaborative planning meetings; I created schedules for the computer labs; had all the teachers sign up for their library times; I planned lessons for the first week – all the stuff you do to try to get ready for the students. And all went smoothly on the first day but the second day I woke up and realized that what I thought was a runny nose due to allergies had turned into something more. I went to school anyway (that’s what teachers do) but left right after school to do some grocery shopping for a book club meeting at my house the following evening before going home and crawling into bed. That was Tuesday. I didn’t crawl out again until Sunday (needless to say I canceled the book club meeting). That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I did take a cab to and from the doctor’s on Thursday morning. She diagnosed me with influenza and the beginnings of an ear infection, gave me meds and told me to stay home until Tuesday. I had a fever until Sunday morning. (I don’t know the last time if ever that I had a fever for five days.) Monday I managed to wash my hair and I figured I must be ready for school the next day, so I set my alarm and headed back to school on Tuesday. I was blowing my nose a lot and still coughing but I tried to convince everyone (and myself) that I was much better than I had been. I taught in the morning and tried to catch up on urgent stuff. I attempted to stay long enough for a class after lunch but by 11:30 am I had made another doctor’s appointment and was on my home. This time the diagnosis was a sinus infection and I added more meds to those I was already taking. It is now Saturday. I have two more days of antibiotics and I figure I should be able to go back to school on Monday. But that’s not what this blog post is about; that’s just the background.

This blog post is about what I have learned this week while I lay around resting and recuperating (in no particular order):

The cloud rocks. It is so much better to create files as Google docs or upload them to Google docs or use Dropbox or something other application that keeps them in the cloud rather than saving them on a server that you can only access at work. I was able to tweak timetables and keep track of my own and I was able to help with lab bookings and the like.

Having a PLN and friends on social networks keeps you from being completely isolated while stuck at home. I was able to follow more of the great stuff being shared on Twitter and to pass on valuable links to colleagues. I participated in a meeting to choose books for the Red Dot Award via Skype. Being at home during the day meant that I had more overlapping hours to catch up with friends on the other side of the world via Skype and various chat applications (and even the – gasp – telephone once or twice).

I ♥ my iPhone. Yes it is only a 3G model but it was perfect for quick checks of email, Facebook, Twitter and reading articles and blog posts while lying in bed too weak to sit up and hold my laptop and unable to focus long enough to read a book.

A warm laptop feels great on your chest when you are experiencing the chills part of fever and chills.

Lisa Patton is a fabulous MS/HS teacher-librarian (and a good friend). She sent home a stack of great YA novels to keep me busy. You can see them on my Goodreads.

No matter how much time I have or how bored I may get, blogging and catching up on Google Reader come at the end of the list of ways I will find to amuse myself.

If you are a teacher-librarian and you have to get sick, do it before you have put collaborative lessons plans in place.

Here’s to being well!

Brunch with Margriet Ruurs, author

Posted on March 21, 2010 by megangraff

I had a lovely brunch this morning at Halia in the Singapore Botanic Gardens with the author, Margriet Ruurs, and several teacher-librarians who work at various international schools in Singapore. (Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos.)

Margriet will be working with students at United World College of South East Asia (both Dover and East campuses) and the Canadian International School (BT and TK campuses) in Singapore this week and will also be doing presentations for parents.

Over brunch, Margriet told us stories about and from her books, such as My Librarian is a Camel.

Margriet filled us in on her upcoming trip to Mongolia and we also learned about Between the Covers, a book-lovers B&B on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada that she and her family own and run. It sounds and looks fabulous and I hope one day to visit.

In addition to being an author, Margriet is also the editor of KIDSWWWRITE: The e-zine for young authors and readers. I would like to encourage some students to submit their writing to her at some point.

Other books and authors were mentioned over the course of the visit. Here is a partial list:

Reading Magic by Mem Fox (a good book to recommend to parents about reading with their children)

Dying to Meet You by Kate Klise, illustrated by Sarah Klise – first title in a new series that will appeal to young readers (and that I’m now dying to read!)

Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt – first published in 1940 and still loved by babies today, including my nephew Grant as seen here in July 2009.

A recent article in the NY Times about a father and daughter who read together daily for 3,218 nights was mentioned.

Last but not least we also discussed the video created by the students and staff at Ococee Middle School in Florida: Gotta Keep Reading

What a fabulous way to spend a Sunday morning!

Two more Margriet Ruurs links:

Margriet Ruurs fan page on Facebook

Margriet Ruurs on Twitter

You say “toys”, I say “tools”

Posted on February 11, 2010 by megangraff

My school values collaborative planning and one-way this manifests itself is in our grade level QUIP (Quality Unit of Inquiry Planning) days. A week or two before beginning a new unit of inquiry teachers are given a ½ day of release time to plan with the members of their team, our curriculum coordinator and our PYP coordinator.

We have 5-9 classes at each grade level so there is usually a morning group and an afternoon group. As a teacher-librarian, I try to be present for most of the day in order to effectively provide resources and support for the unit being planned.

I have tried only popping into QUIPs when the group is “scheduled” to discuss resources but I find I miss too many important things that come up throughout the day. That being said, there are times when I don’t need to be part of the discussion. I have started taking my iPhone to the meetings so I can at least stay on top of my work email and Twitter (we don’t have school laptops and are not allowed to access the wireless network with our personal laptops – which deserves its very own blog post someday). At our most recent round of QUIPs, I started asking the coordinators if I could jump on their computers to check the library catalog, Library Video, Titlewave and other relevant sites. On Wednesday, I also showed up with my Mac Book. Although I couldn’t use the Internet, I was able to work on my previous blog post when I wasn’t involved in the discussion.

And this brings me to the title of this post. During the session this past Wednesday, I was sitting with my laptop on my knees and my iPhone in my hand and one teacher said, “Oh, look at Megan and her toys”. While I do have a fair number of fun game type apps on my iPhone (most of which I use to amuse assorted children when I visit my brother), I wasn’t using any of them – I was working, but to this teacher, the tools I was using were just “toys”. I was a bit dumbfounded and didn’t know how to reply so I just smiled and let it slide. However, it bugged me and got me wondering about how we can work to change some people’s perception of technology as simply toys.

How do we get teachers on side and using tech with their students if they view it as playing with toys? What should I have said to this teacher?

Good Workshop Presenters vs Not-so-good Workshop Presenters

Posted on February 10, 2010 by megangraff

I spent the first two days of this week at a workshop for librarians and library technicians hosted by our library software company. The best outcome of the two days is that it has inspired me reflect on good workshop presenters vs. not-so-good workshop presenters and has given me the necessary push I needed to start a professional blog.

As a PYP teacher, I have attended several IBO PYP workshops over the last few years and I now appreciate even more the workshop leadership training that the teachers who lead those workshops take part in. I have also been to other workshops of varying lengths presented by various individuals and organizations but the most have been only a day or shorter.

Registration took place in a library where there was room to mingle and then everyone sat down at the round tables. We did a quick share of who we are, our school and our position and then we moved to a computer lab. Had this been a PYP workshop, I suspect we would have had some sort of activity to get us moving and mingling prior to changing rooms – perhaps sorting ourselves along a continuum based on library experience, or how far we traveled to come to the workshop. As it was, once we were installed in the computer lab, people interacted with the people closest to them – often the ones from their school (and if me and my colleagues were typical, others online). Working with a group when everyone is behind a computer and connected to the Internet comes with its own benefits and challenges.

One element of every PYP workshop I have attended (as well as some other workshops) has been a way of recording the participants’ “burning questions/issues”. (I have seen this done primarily with chart paper and Post-it® notes but why not set up an online bulletin board at wallwisher or stixy?) The presenters review the questions posted by participants during breaks or at the end of the day and address them when the group gathers again. Presenters need not claim to have all the answers but they should answer what they can and hunt for the answers they don’t have. The later is sometimes as easy as polling the room for another participant who can share their knowledge or experience.

In our classrooms, we encourage active listening, co-construction of knowledge and plenty of time for sharing. Teachers are often a difficult audience for presenters – they frequently prefer to talk instead of listening. Opportunities to share in partners or small group or whole group can release some of the side conversations that take place. Presenters do well to have many tricks up their sleeve as good teachers – simply asking if anyone has any questions rarely elicits much reaction. Unfortunately one of our workshop presenters became argumentative (his word) when questioned about the software he was presenting. Another wished to demonstrate new and improved features of the latest version but clicked along too quickly with very little commentary and so we were unable to follow along our own library catalogs. A series of annotated screenshots and/or screencasts with voice-over might have made this easier.

One of the presenters took a stab at using web 2.0 tools and started our second day by creating an Etherpad. Unfortunately the buzz petered out when only 16 people in the room could access it at one time and not many people added to it (even the presenters had to be reminded to add links at times). I have been to workshops where the presenters have created wikis for the session but personally after the workshop, I have rarely visited them. I have also used a Google doc with a group, but we had problems with delays in changes showing up. What collaborative tools have you used successfully?

At one point, we had a PowerPoint presentation on weeding library books. This would have been a great place to introduce the Awful Library books blog for some fantastic examples and visuals. Instead we were treated to monochromatic slides of bulleted lists that the presenter read to us. I found myself falling into the horrible trap of madly trying to copy down the information and failing to get it all before the slide had changed which interfered with my listening. At the end she mentioned the URL for the PDF where much of her information had been gathered so all my mad copying was for naught anyway. (If you haven’t seen the humorous video, “How Not to Use PowerPoint”, you can watch it here.)

I have been to disappointing IB workshops and not all the good workshops I have been to have been interactive. As an example of an engaging non-participatory workshop, I attended a fabulous workshop on library design presented by Kevin Hennah at ISB in August (Kim Cofino blogged about it here). Kevin showed us hundreds of slides and talked at us for hours but for his presentation the combination of fabulous photos and interesting patter was plenty to keep me engaged. However this was definitely an exception not the rule.

What do you think are the characteristics of a good workshop presenter?