Tuesday this week, we did our oral presentations. The writing was good. I got my paper back on Tuesday as well. I called it my final draft because I won't be editing and submitting again. But, Professor Mary calls it the second draft. Symantecs, gotta love them.
But, as Mary says, presenting, especially in a job setting, is a major part of being a technical writer. You need to be able to present your findings.
But, (ooh, I just like the word But), there's so much information and only 5 minutes to give my presentation. Giving the presentation wouldn't be a problem. When I worked and travelled with E&Y, I gave presentations and taught new technology to up to 100 new hires. So, speaking wasn't a problem for me. My problem seemed to be how to present what I needed to present.
As it turned out, the class didn't remember even sitting in front of an interactive whiteboard. If we had had time to request one, it would have been a big hit for everyone to use it with their presentations.
But, I had to, as a classmate stated, "freelance" my presentation. I should have done one major task in the beginning. I used the chalkboard to compare what is done on the chalkboard and the interactive whiteboard. When I came to that point of my presentation, the information would have already been on the board so I could have just pointed to it.
I gave out handouts. My presentation only briefly talked about what was on the handouts. The other problem was that we couldn't even use PowerPoint. I've learned the best ways to use PowerPoint over my time in employment and have also expeienced when it wasn't the best use of the software.
Compared to other students, I had 1 (one) 4x6 note card, which I didn't even really look at. I knew what I was talking about. I'm so for having technology in the grade school classrooms that this subject was not just a professional calling, but also a personal calling.
The results? After watching the video, I was okay with watching myself. I really wasn't that bad. As Mary noted, my tone was good, my pace was really good, and the fact I talked to everyone, not just looked in one spot was really good. I will know next week the nitty gritty specifics on what I might do to improve. Everyone thought I was good too.
For my paper, I had one additional task to do. Mary had us upload our papers to a Web site: www.turnitin.com. It is a generic software program that takes papers and determines if there's any plagarizing involved. Throughout my paper, it found 4 instances of exact quotes, followed by their citings. So, out of the 8 pages of paper body, there was 4% quoted. So, as it appears, my paper was my own, original work. And, I needed those citations anyway to help drill in my point.
Yeah!
Lots of love to all,
Cathy
8^ )
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