Preparation
Pei Zi presenting!
We only had a few weeks to prepare for the oral presentation. It was also the peak period for Common Tests and assignments deadlines for other modules. Futhermore, I had a quiz right after my group's presentation. Thus, my group faced a huge challenge in scheduling our rehearsal sessions.
All of us volunteered for the parts in the presentation that suited our expertise and ability best. I chose to present on the proposed solution of our proposal, which was our unique recycling booth, as I was mainly involved in creating its graphic model.
Initially, we planned to use Powerpoint to deliver our presentation. Fortunately or unfortunately, my friend from another class introduced Prezi, which was an alternative application to Powerpoint. He showed me the special effects that could be done with Prezi. However, as this application was discovered late, we only had one night to transfer our presentation from Powerpoint to Prezi. We took awhile to get used to editing using Prezi. Despite the arduous task of editing our presentation on Prezi, I was extremely impressed with the outcome.
It was already 10pm by the time we were done with the editing. After being chased out by the security guards from the classrooms, we borrowed a projector from the Science Club before proceeding to continue our rehearsals at an outdoor projector screen nearby. We practiced numerous times as a group to improve the flow and timing of our presentation. We gave each other feedback and discussed the possible questions that could be raised during the Q & A session. It was a very interesting experience!
Amanda and Jeremy listening attentively!
Delivery
The rehearsals gave me much more confidence during the presentation. I constantly reminded myself to keep eye contact with the audience and be aware of my body language. The effects of emphasizing the statistics in my Prezi board also helped strengthen the point I intended to make. I found the Q & A session engaging as well. Fortunately, some of the questions we spotted prior to the presentation were asked by the audience.
However, there was much to improve on. I decided to use cue cards as I was afraid of forgetting my lines. I realized holding them made me too dependent on it, even though I knew my lines in the first place! My relationship with the audience could have improved during the Q & A session, as I felt I was a little stern with them. With more practice, I could have worked on my tone and the use of gestures to better emphasize my points.
In conclusion, this presentation was my first one with much effort put in. I will certainly remember this session for a very long time.
Go Team Planet!
Hi Ikhsan!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, good job on your Oral Presentation. It seems like eons ago when we did our Peer Presentation together! haha.
I think you did well for your part in the presentation. You were confident and you started off very strong. You maintained a good eye contact with the audience and you were very clear with your content and speech.
And I agree with your position on cue cards. I am also confident that you would have done an even better job if you were not distracted by your cards. It would still be important to have though, just in case we totally blank out.
Something that I felt you did particularly well was your NVC. While your other group mates were presenting, you showed that you were engaged and in the question and answer section you appreciated the audience as well.
Once again, a job well done man. Glad to see your hard work paid off! =]
Hey Zabir,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your encouraging comments! Yeah the cue cards were a huge distraction for me. I felt both of us improved from our Peer Teaching presentation too.
Hope we can work together in the future dude! See you in class later!
Hi Ikhsan,
ReplyDeleteI must say you and your team did a very engaging presentation. I was able to follow the whole presentation with ease. Though I did have some questions at the end, they were cleared during the questions and answers section. The whole team displayed clear knowledge about the topic. It can be seen from the way everyone presented, the hard work in the preparation and rehearsals.
As you have mentioned, the temptation to rely on cue cards even if we do not need them is hard to resist. Once we look at it we will repeatedly use it. However, even though you did look at it a few times you seem conscious about it and did reduced the dependency on it. Personally I find it very difficult to do presentation without the cue cards but I feel that with practice short presentation without cue cards would become easier.
I agree with the fact that the use of Prezi was impressive as it was my first time seeing a presentation using Prezi. The presentation type was refreshing at first, but far into the presentation the transitions was quite distracting.
Overall I feel that you did a very good job.
Dear Ikhsan,
ReplyDeleteI must say that you did a great job for your oral presentation. I saw how you progress from your first rehearsal to the final presentation. I think that you presented confidently and displayed good knowledge of your part.
I think that one point which we can work on is our facial expression during the presentation. Like many of our classmates have highlighted, smiling will make us look more approachable and friendly. Smiling will definitely help improve our relationship with the audience. Another area which I thought we could improve on was our time management for our Q&A session. I think that this was neglected during our rehearsals. With better time management, we could have better prepared for an ending of our Q&A session so that it wouldn't seem so abrupt.
Lastly, I want to thank you for all the hard work you have put into the project and presentation! Despite having a test on the same day of the presentation, you stayed up till 3am in the morning for the preparations. I think that's a commendable effort!
It was a great pleasure working with everyone on the team. Go Team Planet! :)
Hi Ikhsan,
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean by being too dependent on the cue cards; Ms Lim commented that I didn't refer to my script at all during peer teaching, making the paper a distraction instead of a boon to the presentation. However, I do agree with zab that cue cards can still be there as a reminder in case we blank out halfway because we didn't have enough time to prepare fully for our presentation. I didn't due to my own laziness, so my presentation can serve as a "Case Study" for that, haha!
I also feel that despite the last-minute changes and editing, I still want to thank you for introducing us to Prezi (: It really set us apart from other groups (muahaha) in terms of using visual aids. I also appreciate how you went to the trouble of finding a video to illustrate how the reverse vending machine.
On that note, I also want to thank you for being the resource and research expert in our team. We can always count on you to pull out some convincing statistic or website when we're tearing our hair out over how to proceed. Resource-wise, you provided not only Prezi, but our camcorder and tripod at the last second, like some magician that pulls things out from a hat! I think that's really dependable (:
I've also learnt a lot more about your personality and it's heartwarming to see that you're much more comfortable with not only Team Planet, but with the rest of the class. I hope I can be the same with other classes I take in the future (: Thanks for being such a wonderful classmate!
(Team Planet is AWESOME!)
@Peh Joo
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments! I feel that I need to find a way to use the cue cards without being too dependent on them.
I must admit that our presentation were bordering on being too animated. I have to take that too account in future presentations. Thank you again lady!
@Pei Zi
ReplyDeleteHey Pei Zi! I agree with you that smiling will make us look more approachable and friendly. I feel that with more time, we could not only work on the Q & A sessions, but perfect our presentations in the facial expressions aspect too!
I really enjoyed working with you and the rest. I have never felt so motivated to do work in a group project before. Haha! I feel that I have learnt a lot from you through our journey together.
I hope to work with you again soon! =).
@Amanda
ReplyDeleteHey Amanda! What you said has some truth in it. Maybe placing just keywords on the cue cards instead of entire sentences might help in making us less dependent on it, but still serve as a reminder in case we forget.
About my 'resourcefulness', Google has been a great friend to me information wise. Haha. I feel that I just had to make up for the areas where I could not contribute as much.
Despite Pei Zi and you being much younger than me, I feel that I have learnt so much from the both of you. This clearly shows that wisdom does not necessarily come with age.=).
Till then, I hope to work with you again soon! You have been a great classmate, groupmate and friend!
Hey Ikhsan,
ReplyDeleteI think your team did really well for your presentation! Definitely, choosing the roles that each of you were best suited for played a major part in your success. In addition, I really respect your committment! My team tried rehearsing late, but we gave up around 9:30pm. =X
Anyway, I don't think that you were too stern with your audience. I personally view it as you trying to be professional, and I think that it's acceptable.
Since you came up with the Prezi idea, I'll just talk about it here and avoid mentioning the same thing on the other Team Planet blogs. I really enjoyed it! It was a risk that paid off. The one tiny problem I have with it, though, is that some of the transitions/effects were too fast, which certain people (eg. those prone to motion sickness) may not enjoy.
All in all, great job on the presentation overall! =)
@Keefe
ReplyDeleteHey Keefe, I think you would agree with me that it is not the quantity of hours that matters, but its quality. I must say that your team did well either. I could tell that much preparation was being done for your presentation.
We had to stay up late in school because we spent too much time on re-editing our presentation. We could have gone back earlier if not for it.
Thanks for the comments on the Q & A session man. I just thought I could have been more tactful in replying them.
I have to be more delicate and cautious with using Prezi in the future. It has many drawbacks, but it has a huge potential.
Thanks once again for the comments!