Thursday, April 7, 2011

PPT: Post-Presentation Thoughts

I liked our presentation.
I liked the way we presented.
I liked how our slides looked simple.
I liked the chemistry between our group members.
I liked how we spurred each other on to speak confidently.
I liked how we candidly pointed out to each other our weaknesses.
I liked the way things worked out as we imagined ourselves as salespeople.
I liked how we did not deliberately keep time but instead presented free-flow.
I liked the three-straight-days practice and the hours driven individuals gave.
I liked how Jac was initially petrified but emerged victorious over her fears.
I liked how Faizal systematically devised his simplified explanations.
I liked Kenneth's hard work and amazing efforts.
I liked my formal office dress code.
I liked/ like my group members.
I still like our presentation.

Well, since we're almost arriving at the end of the module, I figured that I had to get creative, hence explaining the queer shape you see above. Hopefully, my message conveyed there can be as clear as what our oral presentation was said to be. Buf if it's not apparent, here's the gist of what the queer shape says: Edwin liked the presentation.

Some things I felt we did well were to:
1. Relate the presentation to URA,
2. Make simple yet understandable slides,
3. Not to put too much focus on how we obtained our research but instead made periodic references to them,
4. Portray the problem faced clearly by relating to many real life examples
5. Focus firstly on the WHY, then HOW and WHAT. We managed to psyche ourselves to think in terms of WHY we WANTED to present, instead of what we had to present.
6. Divide the workload / airtime quite equally.

But of course, our presentation is not perfect. There are many potential areas for improvement. For starters, I find myself to be hesitant in my speech, and my diction heavy as I watched the video recording of our presentation. Somehow, my thought processes slow down greatly when I stand before a crowd, resulting in momentary pauses peppered throughout my part. This is one aspect that I would hope to improve on before I start to go into the teaching world, to organise my thoughts quickly and to package them smoothly to allow simple understanding. Also, I feel that even though the group has been trying not to do so, most of us are still relying on quite a bit of memory to bring us through the presentation. This is in spite of us being clear of what is going on and what we have to convey to the audience. Perhaps we have to learn to trust more in our abilities to speak in front of a crowd impromptu.

Overall, I enjoyed the whole course of the presentation, from the preparations to the wrap up. Now, I am totally convinced that we need Study Rooms in residential clusters.

16 comments:

  1. Nice post, I like it!

    Brad is proud of you!

    Cheers

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  2. Edwin’s group’s presentation was convincing and professionally delivered. The design and organization of slides were uncluttered and effective. On the whole, it was a good sales pitch. I especially applaud Edwin for being the best dressed and recommend a bow tie and dark gloves to match his suit.

    What Edwin needs to hone, however, are his skills in concealing his mistakes. It was all but blatantly obvious when Edwin spaced out toward the end of the presentation as a result of forgetting his punch-line. I would recommend that for his future presentations he remembers only key points instead of scripting complete sentences as this would both be easier and result in a more natural-sounding speech.

    Finally, I suggest that Edwin works on his heavy accent, something he can easily do by watching the British Broadcasting Corporation and practicing frequently.

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  3. Hey Edwin,

    Your group has certainly set a high benchmark for other groups to follow. I really liked how your group was cohesive in terms of content that it flowed right out of every member like a story told with four parts. In each subsequent speaker, I could easily find traces and links with the previous speakers.

    I think you personally spoke loudly with great confidence. This is one principle of communicating persuasively that i can learn from you too - when you're confident, your listeners can then be confident of what you're saying.

    Although you claim that your diction is heavy, [and contrary to what Issac says] i think that it's alright as it does not hinder the ease in which we can understand your presentation.

    Great job Edwin!!

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  4. Edwin you rocked! I think i mentioned that quite a few times already mmms. Anyway, I never knew you had an accent! I thought you did well! And that minor glitch at the end was not a big problem compared to my frozenness which lasted the first few minutes. I thought you performed much better than I did. You rock=) Your girlfriend rocks even more. (oops)

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  5. Yea Edwin big upz to your gf for the assist!

    haha you know what I also didn't realize you had an accent. Maybe I'm just used to it.

    I always wondered if I had an accent.....

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  6. Hi Edwin,

    Yeah you know how terrible I felt when everyone voted for your group? The stark difference in our presentations was just glaring.

    I was ashamed
    I was thinking to myself 'why didn't i think of doing that' (the phases part)
    I was thinking 'no wonder they got 80+ marks' (i really think your group was deserving)
    I was thinking why was I focused on thinking how best to enhance the living environment of dancers instead of how to convince URA to take up my proposal (Why didn't my groupmates tell me I was blinded and try to change the way I was developing the project? Why did the whole project feel like I was the only one doing it?)

    Nevertheless, I'm glad your group worked as a team, each contributing ideas, working and helping each other grow through this project. I'm sure Brad is very proud of your group.

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  7. Hey Michelle,

    Do not be worried, your teacher finished his assessment of the presentation before he asked your classmates' opinions, so who knows, even if your classmates disliked your presentation, you just might have gotten 90 marks on your teachers assessment roll, higher than Edwin's 80 marks. Haha!

    Cheers

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  8. Oh yes, by the way, a bow tie and gloves will just look silly. I think your dressing was good enough.

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  9. Your group did an excellent job in delivering your idea to the audience and convincing URA to build study rooms in the heartlands. I really enjoyed your presentation and most importantly I could clearly see your group’s plan and purpose for writing the proposal.

    Not forgetting, you presented very well too. You spoke clearly and concisely; keeping you sentences short. You spoke with confidence and it was clear that you had full understanding of the content that you were presenting. I really enjoyed your summary where you used “why, what, how…”, as it provided a clear understanding of what have been presented. Your dress code was professional. However, I felt that you could have spoken more naturally as you spoke as though you had memorized what you had planned to say.

    Overall, it was an outstanding presentation from you.

    Cheers!

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  10. I would like to add two additional points. It would be good if you did not apologize for yourself during the presentation as this showed a lack of confidence from you. Secondly, Faizal did not seem to be aware of the slides that you were presenting on as he was changing your slides to and fro at times. In this instance, a dry-run with him before the presentation would be beneficial.

    However, overall I would still say that you did an excellent job in your presentation!

    Cheers!

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  11. OOOH!

    Thanks for all the comments guys! I must admit, not being able to conceal my mistakes is probably one of my greatest flaws. The moment when I spaced out at the end reminded me of the time when I forgot my lyrics during the semi-finals of a singing competition. HAHAH!! Somehow, I seem to not have grown out of this bad habit of forgetting the most important things, or letting them pass if I really did forget them.

    I must commend Jac though, because she was trying to tell me what I wanted to say when I spaced out! HAHAH!! but sorry Jac, I was in a state where I couldn't make out what you were mouthing!

    @michelle: there is nothing to be ashamed of if there is no comparison made..right? Dun blame yourself ya!

    @ben: thanks for the assuring encouragments! They warm my heart like cheese in an oven. =)

    ps@michelle: yea, I think i would probably just stick of my shirt, without the tie and gloves for the near future. =)

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  12. Hey Edwin! I want to add on to your blog post! I like the way you describe how you like everything about your group and the presentation. I think overall you did well for the presentation. It was clear, concise, and most importantly convincing. I find your diction is ok and I am comfortable with it. :) Though there were times you paused a while (I guessed you are thinking of what to say next), it is ok. The flow was natural as you delievered your slides. I think with practices and more experience, you will definitely be a great presenter!

    And all the best in your future teaching career!

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  13. Hi Edwin, I really liked how you dressed that day (Haha!) so yes don't worry about the bow tie and gloves.

    Anyway, I felt that you were good in the delivery of your slides. Your voice was at a good volume and the round-up at the end of the slides proved as a good memory booster of the entire presentation. I was really sold on the idea of the study rooms so please go and build them or something haha! I did feel that your eye contact could have been more well distributed. I was really neglected in that corner (emo) and I think this would be useful in your teaching career because students are seated all around the classroom. I think it is important to let every student know you are aware of their presence so maybe you could work on this. But in all,good job on the OP :)

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  14. Hey Edwin! Your team did well on the presentation. The flow of the whole OP is nice, the direction is so clear that it was like knife through butter and the transition from on speaker to another is well managed too. The good use of photos of the actual venues helped to bring the whole idea close to reality and that became a major factor in convincing the audience.

    Your pace on the OP was fine and your voice was clear and loud. Therefore, the audience had no problem understanding your delivery of the content. I also like your ‘friendly’ stance and this has helped to bring the whole atmosphere to a lighter tone as compared to OP of other teams.

    One point you can improve on is your tendency to stop 1 or 2 seconds from time to time. Instead to memorizing the script, you can memorize the main parts instead and let the slides and your understanding of the logic of the project to bring you through the OP.

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  15. Hi Ediwn =)

    I liked your presentation too =). I think you did a great job as a speaker and can see why Brad gave you very good grades =). What I especially liked about your presentation was that you spoke clearly and knew how to speak at an appropriate volume throughout your presentation. Since clarity is part of the 7Cs, I’m glad that you’ve displayed a high level of it. However, I felt (I could be wrong) that you appeared to have forgotten a bit of your points during your presentation. Haha, I know that audiences generally would not know if the speaker had forgotten something, but for me, for some reason, I had the impression that you had difficulty recalling some of your points. This could be, as you have said, the slowing down of your thought processes during your presentation. For me, I avoid memorizing my presentation because I absolutely cannot rote learn something to save my life lol. Hence, I ensure that I can see the flow of logic in my presentation. Once that is done, everything becomes intuitive because once I start speaking on my first point; I know that logically, point X must follow, followed by point Y. Maybe having a good grasp of the innate logic in your presentation will help you to avoid relying on memorization =).

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  16. I like how you like everything about our presentation. It was great doing the oral presentation with you. Coordonner Les rocks! Thank you for your guidance during our practices. It helped me a lot.

    Apart from the slipping during your final blow, your part of the presentation was well done. It would have been much better if you remembered the key words for your part, so that even if you forget the actual sentence, you can still build your words around these key words. I, too, would need to work on that too!

    Like Faizal, I am also unaware of the presence of any accent in your speech. I probably hung out too often with you (ES2007S, LSM2103 and ST1232) to notice the accent.

    Anyway, where is the video recording of our presentation? I have yet to see it.

    ReplyDelete