Next mission: partner search

I am thrilled since once having designed my open education prototype, I went for the search of a partner to collaborate with. In so doing, first and foremost, I was scrolling up and down running collaborative projects across the world. After looking at them, the collaborative movement called “The 30 goals challenge” definitely drew my attention. This project was designed by Shelly Sanchez Terrell @ShellTerrell; she is the author of “The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Teaching”. Among all the goals, I went for the “Recognize with a Badge” one.

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Why did I select this “Recognize with a badge" goal?

As you may remember, the open education prototype that I created about the weather and the climate - The weather forecasters - concerns both ICT and social science; therefore I had to choose a collaborative project that matches my topic. As a result I went for the 30 goals challenge, particularly, the “Recognize a badge” one, because it was the one that better suits my prototype, since it talks about teaching students by creating missions that they have to overcome, and reward them by using digital badges.

To put  my prototype in line with this collaborative project I had to modify the assessment of the missions students have to complete. Since apart from gauging their outcomes, I will take into consideration how they manage their responsibilities and roles. As a result, I will create digital badges for them, but also they will create badges, as in the missions, students will have different roles and responsibilities; therefore, they will assess and reward their peer’s role and behaviour.

Another adjustment I made in my prototype was the name of the project, since I decided to call it “The weather forecasters” so that it is more appealing.

At that point, I was ready to prepare my elevator pitch.

What is an elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch is a strategy used to present a project - in a convincing way - in order to look for a potential buyer or supporter. This strategy is usually used by entrepreneurs  looking for financial backup.

In this case, I have used the elevator pitch technique with educational purposes, to try to cajole the “Recognize a badge goal” people to accept me to collaborate with them. In so doing, I created an elevator pitch that lasts 20 seconds.

How did I create it?

First and foremost, I opened an online document in Google Drive, to create a draft of my elevator pitch. I started with a sentence that will catch the audience’s attention, then, I linked it with the reason why I chose the present collaborative project, I presented my project in few words and I concluded the pitch mentioning my status.

In this part of the post I am going to give you the scheme that in general an elevator pitch follows. I created it with Canva.

Elevatorpitch by Lucía Carrasco

How did I elaborate the video?

Firstly, I timed my elevator pitch, to match the 20-second speech. After that, I memorized the speech.

Secondly,  I was recorded in an elevator and  I signed up in WeVideo. When I was editing the video, I noticed that there was a big watermark; therefore, I went for the Movie Maker tool that you can download here. I inserted the video and I added two slides; one at the beginning with a title, and the other at the end containing my twitter handle and the link of my blog. Immediately, I inserted two animations; after the title and before the last slide, and I kept the project.

Finally, I uploaded the video to Youtube and that was all.

Here you have my video. Hope you enjoy it.

Reflection time

As for the selection of the project, it was easy, since after taking a look at different ones, the 30 goals challenge definitely caught my eye. Then, selecting the particular goal - “Recognize with a badge” was easy too, since I found it extremely motivating and innovative. Besides, I thought that since students will create digital badges to reward their classmates, and they will assess them in some way, they will work on their higher-order thinking skills, since they find giving feedback difficult, and I strongly believe that this is a skill that students have to train from a very young age, to be critical and value the work others do, and learn from them.

As far as the draft is concerned, I found it difficult to prepare, since I had ideas in mind, but I wasn’t able to put all them in a 20-second speech, in fact, I had to rewrite it several times. I found this elevator pitch technique interesting and useful, to promote or present things in a clear and direct way, and be more efficient when transmitting your message. However, we usually find it difficult, as we have to summarize a lot, and I am of the opinion that we are not accustomed to doing that, at least in this way. Besides that, as teachers, we can incorporate this technique in our classroom to urge our students to summarize, present their ideas and have fun while doing it. I consider that elaborating elevator pitches is a motivating exercise.

Regarding the elaboration of the video, it was extremely motivating and engaging, although I admit having had to record it several times until it was appropriated. For me, having to transmit my message in 20 seconds was a bit demanding, since I had to focus on the speech, look at the camera, sound convincing and control the time. Nevertheless, I utterly recommend it, to practice your speaking skills.

All in all, I have enjoyed this challenge a lot, so I will encourage my students to create their own elevator pitches to practice summarizing, and speaking skills, while having fun.