Choices and Titles: Continued.

Last time on Choices and Titles I listed five titles and asked you to pick you preferred option based solely on the title. I believe titles should be attractive and informative. How do these ones on the program at FGS in Boston measure up on those two factors?

“See Ya in the Funnies”

“Where do I go from Here?”

“Searching Tips and Tricks”

“Adding Muscle and Sinew to the Frame of Memory”

If the title carries little information, then burden of being meaningful falls on the 30 or 40 word description. Now thats a test of wordcraft. Construct a 30 word description of one of your lectures or lessons and see what I mean.

What do you think?

Topics to Teach Genealogy Society Executives

There is a special group of people in every genealogy society that need help. they are hungry for practical ideas, and motivational learning. Its the executive; public minded volunteers that hold a society together. I think every genealogy speaker should have one or two presentations in their list of lectures and workshops that can be aimed at the executive group.. This year i am working on delevoping a lecture on effective newsletters. I've noticed some others offer such lectures. Here are a few examples

Choices and Titles: How do Lecture Titles Influence Our Choices?

It's 2:00 in the afternoon, three quarters of the way through the second day of a regional genealogy conference. You are getting a bit tired. You look at the choices for the next hour. Here's what you find

Discovering Creative Training Strategies

Recently people have been suggesting books for me to read this summer to glean ideas and inspirations on creative training ideas. I've been thinking of developing some of my lectures into all day seminars and my associates have suggestions. So read on at the list of titles.

Nervous?

Do you get nervous just before you begin to teach or lecture? Happens to all of us. Its not necessarily a bad thing. But how do we controll it?

Vibrant Language in my Marketing Material?

Does your promotional material pop with vibrancy like these flowers? Or like an old pair of gray socks? Never thought about it until Jane Atkinson e-mailed me today asking, "How vibrant is your marketing language?"

Supposing your state or regional genealogy society invited me and four other talented speakers to submit proposals for a one-day seminar event. The committee sits down, views my website, then my brochure, my media kit and the proposal I submitted and compares them with those other fabulous four speakers. Only one of us gets the job, One has a frsh, exciting website, a great media kit, fascinating seminar descriptions. jane wants to know if that one will be mine. And she offers some questions to help me improve my chances and make my marketing material more vibarant.

Poet and Genealogist Pack Books

 I have joined the Hermit Poet in Riverside California to pack up his library in preparation for his move to Canada. He has more books than the old man! Incredible!  

2. Reading, Transcribing and Abstracting: Resources for Learning.

Transcribing documents is an almost last art among most genealoists. What with photocopy machines,microfilm reader printers, scanners, digital cameras and the whole attitude of instant genealogy on the web, the skill of transcribing is largely in the domain of the seasoned professional researcher. To bad for the web-based genealogists who never face this task. They may never know the true thrill of the hunt. What resources are there for teachers?

1. Reading, Transcribing and Abstracting: Resources for Learning.

There he sits, the determined genealogist at the microfilm reader pondering marks in a page with a microfilm that states photocopies, even for personal use, cannot be made. The Genealogist obviously needs some skills to handle this situation.

Where can he turn?

Teaching Genealogy in Schools

I was once seduced into teaching a four session introduction to genealogy for a group of very bright 10 and 11 yearold children. What absolute chaos! One asignment was to ask each parent for the full names of each set of grandparents. One parent refused to let her child call or write her father. Another had to call a father in another country. One kid reported his mother would not tell him who his father was! Several reported 3 grandmothers and four grandfathers. When I was a boy, things were simpler. I was reminded about this when I stumbled on an old query by Jackson Stephens, a grad student in education at Brigham young University back in 2003 Jackson posed some interesting questions on an educators forum>