Wednesday, November 30, 2005

First master's presentation

Presented my first seminar today (just a survey one; not a proposal or defense or anything- I wish. ;))

A yes, I always need to improve my presentation skills. I did a pretty good job this time; thought on the fly a bit answering questions, didn't just read off the slides, and mentioned extra tidbits here and there. My audience at least didn't seem bored to tears, and some good discussion came of it.

Now, my biggest issue is those GOD DAMN mouse "pad" thingies (I hate them) on a labtop. The clicker I was using to move from slide to slide also had one on it; it kept reverting to "mouse" mode to my dismay. ARGH.

Gotta love it, electrical engineering student presenting, and it's not the material or questions that challenges him, but rather, the damn mouse. ;) I shouldn't call it a mouse- that's like calling low quality, 3 day old ground beef a juicy perfectly grilled top sirloin (or New York cut) steak. Ain't the same thing.

Oh, and apparently for my directed study (survey of EPS), so far, I've entirely missed the point. Hmmmmmn. I told my supervisor, it won't be the first time I've entirely missed the point; seems to happen to me all the time. :) Live and learn I guess.

2 Comments:

At 2:42 p.m., Blogger James said...

Doesn't that feedback make you feel special?

Usually when a piece of equipment gives me trouble during a presentation, I stop using it if possible. My supervisor has a USB thing he plugs into his laptop so you can have a wireless "mouse" in your hand, this sounds like what you were dealing with. I've used it before and it's nice not to have to go to the laptop whenever you want to move to the next slide. However, it's also a pain when it slips into the wrong mode.

The only time I used a laser pointer it died on me too, so I just stopped using it.

In my comp. geom. presentation a few weeks back I actually didn't use PowerPoint. I went up there and taught it on the blackboard. Now that's old school!

It was actually kinda cool, I don't think I've presented like that since high school.

 
At 4:39 p.m., Blogger Medieval said...

There should be mandatory blackboard teaching for all profs.

I understand some material does not translate well to blackboard teaching; however, relying entirely on slides is a bad thing.

 

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