picture courtesy of www.asanet.org/employment/careers.cfm
Positives:
From my previous Oral Presentation there was a significant improvement in terms of confidence, and visual aids were being used at a larger scale. For this presentation I felt the need of an aid to illustrate my diagrams in my slides better, and I think my investment of a laser pointer paid off as the outcome was an effective transmission of my idea across to the audience.
Also, compared to the OP1 I repeatedly rehearsed on myself before the actual presentation; hence I was able to make use of my visual aids more, rather than explaining through a speech. By interacting with the screen the speaker can express his ideas better and more clearly to the audience.
Room for Improvements:
For this presentation I had adopted a style that was quite foreign to me: holding a cue card. First of all, it was not a deliberate act as the assignment topic was very data-intensive; initially I felt there was a need for a hand-held aid to remind me of my flow of slides throughout the presentation. I have to admit the move backfired as I made a mistake by planning literally my whole speech, in point form, into the cue card, which was something I did not do before. This resulted in an over-dependence on my cue card, hence causing a situation which happened too many times during my presentation:
I was aware of my problem during the presentation and I made an effort to increase my eye contact with the audience. For future presentations, I would try to adapt the slides to my comfortable style of presenting such as to create a smooth expression of my assignment topic to the audience.
Team Performance
As a team, our slide transitions were generally smooth and we successfully reduced the amount of prompting done during the presentation. This is because of the slide notes that we inserted in a separate laptop during the presentation which helped us to cue on the transition of the slides.
A major flaw in our team is that we were too ambitious in the amount of information we want to express to our audience. Though necessary, it resulted in information overloading, which confused our audience during certain parts of the presentation. Perhaps we should have summarise our contents further and alter our overall presentation to give a concise impression. In addition, because of this problem we overshot our allocated time by more than 50%. This will be an area of concern for the next presentation.
Hi Brandon,
ReplyDeleteYour group had done well in choosing the appropriate visual aids. This in turn enable you to do better in your presentation as you are able to coordinate with the visual aid well and your words are in sync with what was shown on the slides.
Practice makes perfect. I commend on your effort in rehearsing repeatedly, this effort was indeed reflected in your presentation. Being one of the audiences, it was not a chore in listening and following your presentation.
In my opinion, I feel that a cue card is necessary in a presentation but the problem lies at whether or not we can minimize the dependency on it. Having cue cards allow us to stay on track during the presentation and coordinate better with the team mate who is controlling the slides. I feel that when we are preparing our cue cards, we should not write too many words, it should be of point forms and during the actual presentation; we should elaborate in our own words so that we will not rely too much on the cue cards.
In my opinion, your eye contact was not bad as I can see that you are making the effort to constantly look at the audience. This indeed made the presentation a more pleasurable one for the audience.
Regards,
Jason.
Hi Brandon,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I felt that you were confident in your presentation which resulted in the points being brought across clearly. The confidence demonstrated also reflects on how much preparation you did before the presentation.
Secondly, the use of a separate laptop with notes on each slide helped greatly in improving the smoothness in the changing of slides. Besides, having a separate laptop also allows us to see what is on the next slide and also know when to click as we would be able to see the animations used as well. This would prevent the problem of “overclicking” as we sometimes are unsure of when to click and when not to, even if we know when to change slides.
As for the time management problem you mentioned, a way to solve it would be to rehearse as a team and time ourselves in the process. By having the rehearsal early, we would have more time to edit the slides and package the presentation differently. We could also better allocate our parts as we would not know exactly how much each other’s part is without rehearsing together.
Overall, you did well in bringing the ideas across with the effective use of laser pointers coupled with the confidence demonstrated. I hope that the points I raised were helpful and that it would help you to better plan your next presentation.
Leonard (C06)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Brandon,
ReplyDeleteIn the point of view of an audience, I felt you did well as a presenter. I felt you were relatively composed and kept constant interaction with the audience.
And that is important in presentations, as it is often the case that the audience loses focus in the presentation not for anything else but the fact the presentations are long and uninteresting. It is good that your presentation was able to avoid that.
On the contrary, I feel that cue cards are important for presentations. No doubt it can be distracting if you constantly wave it around, or refer to it.
But even so, cue cards help us to prevent running the risk of having lost track of where the presentation is leading to.
It is not so much of cue cards being a problem to presentations, it is how the presenter manages the use of the cue cards that is the solution to having distracting cue cards.
Hi Brandon,
ReplyDeleteI like the way you presented your ideas across as it was quite similar to the way I presented my ideas. Thus, it makes it easier for me to understand and faster for me to read through. In addition, it has also made your blog post clearer and more concise.
However, I felt that the acronym used is not properly explained. For example, instead of using “OP1”, it might be better if you first tell the readers what does “OP1” stands for. This is especially important when your blog is viewable by anyone on the World Wide Web. This will then reduce miscommunication between you and the readers, especially those who are not taking CG1413.
Furthermore, it may be better if you can tell the readers what is the exact problem that arose from overdependence on your cue cards and show the photo at the side, rather than just to show the photo. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, the readers may have different interpretation of the photo.
In addition, you may want to rehearse and time your presentation with your teammates before the actual oral presentation. This will then help you gauge the amount of time needed for each person and reduce the amount of content for your oral presentation.
Overall, there is a jump in your blog’s standard from the past. Your recent blog post is short and the ideas are presented clearly. Furthermore, you have used a better colour scheme for your blog. It is definitely a remarkable improvement from your previous blog posts. Good job and keep up the good work!
Li Hua
Hi Brandon,
ReplyDeleteI felt that your presentation was professional and I particularly enjoyed it. You were assured and poised during your part and that lent confidence to your content, which was critical since you were talking about solutions. You interacted well with the audience and your speech was well rounded and focused.. Good Job!
I do agree that practice makes perfect and that repeated rehearsals are the best way to ensure the presentation goes well, and it showed in a smooth presentation that shone with conviction. However, I feel that rehearsing with a friend would be more beneficial as they would be able to check on your actions and speech, seeing from the perspective of the audience.
On your comment that it was too much information to take in, I would have to disagree as all the information complemented each other and made it a more persuasive presentation. I liked that there was a summary at the end, so that the audience is made aware of the main points, which would negate the information overload.
I would like to suggest that to improve your presentation; you could have made it more interactive and easier for the audience to relate to it, considering that you wanted to reach out to the population.
Overall, it was an excellent presentation, and a good balanced analysis of it. I am looking forward to your next one.
Regards,
Kimberly