2019/2020 LE blogs

      Today, I learned about using multimedia to make our presentations look more persuasive. I researched about multimedia and found that there were 5 elements of multimedia (text, image, audio, video and animation). The website I researched said that audio, video and animation were categorized in the dynamic elements. Perhaps if our group enhanced these elements, it would become an impressive presentation.        Then I learned about the "mouth" person catching people's attention. I thought Apple was smart because they didn't call the visitors to come to the council, but made them come. My group thought that just saying "Hello we are going to start our presentation" before the presentation isn't really effective. So we are planning to show a short video before going to the actual presentation to catch the audience's attention. The content of the video is about reviewing the bad points of our classroom.

 Today, we learned about proof of concept. This means that we need to support our ideas by presenting valid examples or information. For example, I have been working on a presentation about the chairs and desks in the classroom, so I need to find good reports or examples of what other schools or universities are doing about chairs and desks. In my presentation, I had absolutely no support for my ideas, only my own opinions, so my arguments were not very persuasive.  To find proof of concept, crowdsourcing is a very efficient way to do that. Students share what they have found on the Internet, so there would be a huge amount of information if we all did crowdsourcing. However, I'm concerned that many people will do their research privately and won't share their information, so there would be no point in looking at the crowdsourcing document. Also, we learned about plagiarism when we were practising crowdsourcing. I was surprised when I heard that plagiarism is actually ve...

 Today, we learned about Google sites. I heard that creating a website was easy, and I was very surprised when I tried to make my own website that it was so simple, but at the same time, looked very professional. Showing a website that I made myself at the end of the presentation really shows that we are putting the effort into the project. Putting a QR code of our website in the slideshow might be a good idea too, because the audience doesn't usually have time to type in the link. If we use QR codes, the audience just have to scan the code using their smartphones. Also, this school's website is very hard to view on smartphones. Perhaps, if we had used Google sites, it could be a much better website. Furthermore, I was very impressed by how much Google is contributing to the dissemination of education combined with technology. We also learned about infographics. I didn't know the word "infographic" but I've seen infographics in many places. Infographics ha...

Through this semester, my perspectives and thoughts towards presentations, digital tools and the school system completely changed. Before having Mr.Paterson's class, I was indifferent to these subjects. However, as I learned useful modern facts I became more interested. The biggest change was about presentations. Before the lessons, my presentations were so boring since my slides were a script and I just stood and read the words written on the slideshow. I had no enthusiasm to try to connect with the audience. However, if we think again, the purpose of doing a presentation is to tell something to the audience. So first, I learned the basic facts about what I should have done, for example, looking at the audience or not using the slideshow as a script. For better presentations, we learned some skills and tips such as the arrangement/selection of the images in the slideshow or the SPIDER model. There was scientific evidence regarding the use of these so it was very reliable and un...

Today, our group got feedback on our presentation. I had problems with eye contact and the handclasp in front of my body. Looking at the video of the presentation, I noticed that until the solution slide, I was looking more at the audience but after that, I was looking at the screen a lot longer. Also, I wasn't looking at the audience individually but looking at them as a group. This means that I didn't look at the persons at the back and in their eyes. I didn't notice what I was doing with my hands during the presentation but after I watched the video, I found out that my natural resting posture looked a little defensive. The mouth of the group, Mayako had her arms open all the time, so I will try to imitate her. For the slides, we had a lot of problems with the images. In particular, we need to work on the problem of using images that are more connected to the content. There are not many good images that match the topic on free photos websites. This led to using the car...

Today we finished all of our presentations and received our feedback. Overall, I thought the most difficult points were the eye contact and the posture. I found it difficult to focus on the non-verbal aspect of my presentation.  I think, however, that with practice, I should become better at this. I found group six's presentation good today because they moved and focused on one specific topic. Also, having a quote in the one last thing slide was impressive because it's easy to remember and it's a good way to end the presentation. When it was Q&A time, I found that I couldn't think of a question quickly enough so I didn't come up with a good question to ask.  I was surprised when Mr.Paterson said we were going to do the presentation again. I felt tired when I thought about the practice we'll have to do during the summer holidays when there are so many other assignments to do. Although, the only way we can improve the delivery part of the presentation is t...

Today it was our turn to make a presentation about the school environment. This is my own reflections on my presentation although of course, others might have a different opinion. I thought that the good points were the timing, movements and interaction. Firstly, I was a little nervous and I was worried that we would finish too quickly.  However, my part was about three minutes and ten seconds: it was within the time limit for each person. Secondly, I thought my gestures were good. I had my arms moving and pointed to the actual chairs and desks during the presentation. To be honest, I'm not sure why but these gestures came out unconsciously. Thirdly, I tried to interact with the audience. I threw a question at them and moved a chair to wake them up. On the other hand, the bad points were lack of eye contact, lack of emotion on my part and pauses. Firstly, I noticed that I have a tendency to look mostly at the audience who are sitting at the front.  Also, I looked at the la...