Camila.Cuesta_Post#1

 

    For my first blog post I'd like to reflect on our first presentation project for SPC2608. For this project, our class was divided into three groups to present on the contents of the three sections of our iSpeak textbook and our class leaders were in charge of introductions and technical assistance including making our breakout rooms in the Zoom platform. I do think that everyone put their best foot forward to deliver a great first presentation, however, I would kindly like to give some feedback for improvements in the future.

    Starting off with group one, while the great material was there, there seemed to be a lack of communication to create a smooth flow between group members. It is important to at least know somewhat of each other's content as well as the subsequent order of members presenting to develop techniques or small phrases to smoothly transition from one person to the next during a group presentation; this way the overall delivery does not feel "choppy" to the audience. Another thing we can all take from group one's presentation is learning the importance of time management. We were instructed to keep our group presentations to about 45 minutes to an hour, however, group one took almost all of what was supposed to be shared class time to present for two groups. In the future, it would be a great idea to rehearse presentations whether they be individual or group projects, to get an idea of how long it would take to deliver the entire project and plan accordingly to stay closer to the time allotted. I also felt that the group included a bit too many videos, a lot of which were quite lengthy. The excessive amount of video coverage felt poorly planned between group members and did not feel intentional. When every other slide includes a video, the audience loses interest as their perception of the importance of each video diminishes. Moving forward, it would be best to communicate as a group and preselect only a few videos that are preferably under three minutes and keep it short but effective; this will help with time management as well. 

    I was part of group two and saw myself and my group members affected by the delay in timing following group one. By the time the previous group finished, we no longer expected to present on the same day, which lead myself and other members to panic when we were called on to begin despite only having about half an hour left of class. We were especially shocked as Chapter 9 of iSpeak states it is unprofessional to cut a discussion short and this led us to begin our presentation in an anxious, less confident state. The idea of cutting our presentation into two parts was also somewhat discouraging as the second half of our group would present three days later and we knew that by that time, the audience would likely lose interest in our speech and forget what was said in the last session. In addition to this, we were thrown off by the fact that we would have a class leader give our introduction for us. We were not aware of this until minutes prior to our presentation and had no communication with the class leader to contribute ideas for this introduction. In fact, our group had created a short introduction which we had previously assigned to our group leader. This misunderstanding led to some confusion as well. I would have loved to see how my group performed without having interruptions or difficulties, however, our textbook does say to be prepared and know how to work through complications that might be thrown your way prior to or during your speech and I think we did just that. Given the circumstances, I believe group two did a great job of staying calm and putting out our information. I will say I do wish we had taken more time the day prior or sometime before class to go over the flow of our presentation and perfect minor things one last time.

    Group three was last to present and from them I would take that it is imperative to learn your material thoroughly so that you can present it comfortably without relying heavily on slides. I felt that a few of the group members seemed to read directly from the slides and you could hear it in their monotone voices. If you are directly reading from a slide or a notepad, it often does not sound like you are communicating but sounds exactly like what you are doing: reading. The difference is immediately noticeable, and simply reading off your material seems unprofessional and is not engaging for the audience. I am excited to see progressively less of this in the future as we gain experience. Like group one, I felt as though this group demonstrated some lack of communication because several group members had repetitive information. This could have been avoided by reviewing the complete presentation and separating points in a more comprehensive manner. 

    It is important to note that my group and I did notice that a significant amount of information in our textbook was repeated or presented in an incoherent manner as a topic would be interrupted by another point and then picked back up in a later page. This caused me some distress while attempting to organize my material in a way that made sense and it might have been a difficulty that led to group 3 having repeating information. However, like I mentioned, it could have been avoided with the right preparation and communication prior to their presentation. I was affected by this flaw of the book as Danna in group one spoke about Boolean operations and the use of question marks in your searches to narrow down search results; this was mentioned in her chapter in a different section of the book but it was actually extensively covered in my assigned pages as well and was a significant portion of the content that I was prepared to present. I would be lying if I said I wasn't mortified with this realization, but I made sure to avoid awkward, unaddressed repetition by saying something like "as Danna said in group one's presentation..." This eased off the unspoken tension and I am proud of myself for coming up with a phrase to tie things together on such short notice. Unexpected things just happen, with practice we will be forced to create and pick up on some of these techniques to perfect our speeches even when complications arise. 

    Overall, effort was definitely demonstrated by all of the groups in our class. We succeeded in delivering effective presentations although areas for improvement are expected considering this was our very first project. I am thrilled to see our growth throughout the semester!