Today I would like to talk to you about the presentation project of the course Computing in the Business Environment. This project was really fun and challenging at the same time because I have never done a complete presentation on my computer without speaking to an audience. The challenge about it was also to find a good topic and make it catchy and interesting. As we have learned, we have only 30-60 seconds to catch the attention of the audience. This is why I have chosen a topic especially interesting (hopefully) to Americans. In my presentation, I encourage Americans to support WWF in urging senators to pass the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010. Since Alaska will be the future center of oil production in the US, this act will help to ensure that catastrophes as the Deep Water Horizon oil spill of 2010 will not happen again. Alaska is an especially dangerous place for oil drilling because of its remoteness and its unpredictable and extreme weather conditions. The act will set appropriate and binding safety standards for oil companies. Furthermore, I encourage environmentally conscious behavior in my presentation. Here it is:
I have learned a lot while creating this presentation. To make a video with audio of my presentation, I had to use a new program called Camtasia Studio 7. Picture 1 shows a screen capture of the loading screen of Camtasia Studio 7.
Picture 1: Capture of Camtasia Studio 7 loading screen
This program comes with an add-in for PowerPoint that lets you record a video of your presentation with audio and/or web cam capture while presenting. Fortunately, a free 30 day trial of the software is freely available on the web. After you have recorded your presentation you can also work on it, cut parts out, add parts, include music and much more. A very useful program after you have played around with it for a while and have found out how to use it. See picture 2 for a screen capture of the working environment of Camtasia Studio 7:
Picture 2: The working environment of Camtasia Studio 7
I can see many opportunities for its application in business settings. Distributing presentations in high quality online is no issue at all with this program. You can even let the program post the video for you on websites. It could for example be used to share presentations with peers via email or the company intranet for instance. If you are a superior traveling around a lot, it is a good way to communicate important new issues to your peers without being physically present.
Concerning my self-evaluation I have to say that I of course tried to pay attention to the points mentioned in the Presentation Evaluation Rubric. Even though I have no agenda, I think my presentation has a logical flow and is easy to follow. I actually consciously avoided using an agenda because we learned in the presentation skills week that you should jump right in. I also tried to answer any question that might arise right away like how can you support WWF and why should you try to fight global warming, if you don't believe in it. In hindsight I have to say though that after evaluating another presentation, it might have been appropriate to give some more general information about WWF. I assumed everybody is more or less familiar with it. I don't think that it is a big issue though because anyone who is interested can go on their website and inform him/herself.
A great deal of my effort went into grabbing the viewers attention in the beginning. I tried to establish an emotional connection with the audience by playing a very emotional song, Michael Jackson - Earth Song, and by showing pictures that viewers can relate to. In the course of the presentation I tried to spark curiosity to the topic by posing questions like "have you ever experienced outcomes of global warming?" and then giving examples of national and international scope. I validated my claims by putting the source under them. Overall I tried to consider all the evaluation points.
When evaluating the presentation of a peer, I recognized that he did a presentation as I would have done it in front of an audience. It was a regular PowerPoint presentation of the kind I have seen a lot in my tutorials in Maastricht. I think he did a good job. He had an agenda in the beginning and did not grab my attention in a special way but that was my only point for improvement. The other points in the evaluation form were all addressed in a good way. He had a clear structure, sparked curiosity with questions and answered my questions that arose during the presentation proactively. He used a good video in between and I thought it matched the content very well. Overall he did a very different presentation than I did. His was more fact based while I tried to do a very emotionally catchy presentation. I learned that it can also be done like this.
In summary I can say that this project was very interesting, demanding and really taught me some new things like all the prior sessions in this course did. I hope that you liked my presentation and that I might have inspired you to support WWF and help fight global warming. Have a great weekend and I hope that you will come back to my blog soon.
Sources:
Please read my source document for information about the sources I used.
Please go to the WWF homepage to get more information about WWF and to support them.
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