Thursday, September 07, 2006

Where does the elevator go?

I've been reviewing my notes from last week, and I remembered briefly touching on the notion of an elevator speech. This speech is based off the idea that you should be able to tell someone exactly what you do in your profession, within a time-frame of 30 seconds or less.

Needless to say, my elevator speech needs some work. I have often found it most difficult to explain what my degree program is about. Whenever someone asks what graduate program I'm part of, and I present them with Educational Technology, many are surprised that I'm taking this major in the College of Education. After the initial shock and puzzlement look, the next question is almost unalterably, "What do you do there?"

I've tried numerous variations on a theme, but the normal brief banter I provide goes something like this:

"I'm the computer geek who helps ensure teachers have access and knowledge on how to use technology in the classroom, and I also work on providing new technologies to make teaching more engaging, and more fun for both the educator and the learner."

The initial response borders on something like, "Oh wow, that sounds very cool, you'll be great at that!" And while I appreciate that response, I often wonder...does my description of what I do actually match the goals that IDT (Educational Technology) represents? Does anyone else have any thoughts on this matter, or experience the same general sense of what is it that I actually do?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Bryan.
I have some thoughts on "elevator speeches" in general. When I was in undergrad and decided to go to grad school for Library and Information Science I can't count how many times I heard "there's a degree for that" or "what do librarians do" or something similar. When I decided to go back to school for Ed. Tech I was excitied for many reasons, but I'll admit that I looked forward to not having to constantly explain what I'm in school for and what types of things an educational technologist can do. I guess I'm drawn towards broad, dynamic fields like LIS and Ed Tech. I'll have to work on my own elevator speech...

Mary

Jade said...

About three months ago, Dr Ferdig explained the "elevator speech" to me. I had never thought about it in terms of what I do, I typically think about what I want to do since I've been a student for the past 5 (now 6) years. When I visit family or old friends who have since graduated and started jobs, I struggle with the, "so when are you going to actually graduate and get a job" question. I think this course will help us define our profession/interests but I wonder if those outside our field will ever really understand what it is we do even with an organized elevator speech.