Alibaba ROCKS!!

We finally finished the oral presentation today! I could not describe how relieved I was when I stepped out of the classroom.:D Now let me think through this whole experience with this presentation.

1.Preparations
Based on the grade we got for proposal, we were very confident that we had great contents. We decided to follow the flow of oral discussion, so that everyone is more familiar with their own topics to cover. There were some disagreements on the use of supplementary audiovisuals. Initially, we wanted to use PowerPoint slides and some large white papers for illustrations. Then Vinod introduced to Prezi.com, which is much cooler that conventional slides. Despite the time constraints, we finally decided to give Prezi a try. I was extremely excited about this because Prezi was very new to me and it looks much more interesting that the over-used PowerPoint slides. :P

We were inspired the style of presentation by Ken Robinson, a charismatic speaker and educator. Given the nature of our project, we could not be too humorous in front of all the VIPs in our audience. But the take-away point is that the real talking is always the focus, audio-visuals are simply supplementaries. In the past, I had the tendency to make fancy slides and animations, trying to impress people. However, that distracted people and did not help getting my messages across. Yes, always keep the slides simple and to the point!

For rehearsals, our group has invested in a great amount of time and energy to make sure we handle Prezi properly. I had a programming exam to clear last Saturday, so I could not spend too much time on the preparations before that. Fortunately, my team mates were very considerate and helpful. We have devoted the entire Sunday to this presentation, going through the cycles of rehearsal several times and giving each other constructive feedbacks. I was very lucky to have team mates who really works as a team and help each other out.

2.Delivery
We designed a new setting in the classroom and divided the class into four groups, each representing one stakeholder. I believe this initiative helps audience to know exactly who they were in this scenario.

We made a point that we were not going to take scripts to the stage, although we have already written out numerous drafts of scripts.:P For me, after going through the content many times, I could somehow internalise the points and talk about it in a nature way. I was quite happy that I improved upon my monotonous tone and speak with more passion and enthusiasm. Since people are sitting in a semi-circle, I made an effort to turn around and address everyone.

In terms of the weaknesses,  I have to admit here that I forgot to mention one point about NUS Career Centre. I was supposed to say more the career workshops, but on the spot, I forgot it altogether. I found out this mistake after my presentation and was quite disappointed with myself. But thinking back, people probably did not know I missed this point because there were no bullet points, just a picture of NUS Career Centre on the screen. They did not know what I was planning to say, so they also would not notice this missing point. Therefore, the moral of the story is that it is perfectly fine to miss one or two minor points during presentation, because the audience probably do not know about it!

Other than that, I wished that I could have smiled more, talked more confidently with humour, like what Ken Robinson did for his presentations.

3.Audiovisuals
Prezi is awesome!!We found two very relevant videos to illustrate our points and add new dimensions to our presentation. Prezi forced us to minimise the words on the screen; we could no longer throw in a long paragraph and expect the audience to digest it in several seconds. For my part, since I wanted my speech to be the focus of people's attention, I simply put a few pictures to show the organisations I will talk about. That is rather effective because I believe that more people were looking at me instead of the screen which has only one picture. :D

But if we had more time, we could make the whole map more organised on Prezi. In other words, the contents on Prezi could be further improved. With the limited time we had, I believe we had tried our best. So no regrets.:)

In conclusion, I believe I have improved tremendously from the peer teaching session to this oral presentation. I wish I could present like Ken Robinson and Steve Jobs, simple, sharp and sweet. There is still a long way to go in this journey of self-improvements.