Week 2 - Presentations and Public Speaking

Class Date: Thursday, 28th July, 2011

The speaking order was reversed this week with Ms. Gita Pupedis taking the first half and Prof. Mark Shortis taking the second half. Ms. Pupedis' presentation related to a possible assessment task. Though I am not interested in that task she serves as an excellent model for public speaking. Always enthusiastic about her topic, knows the subject back to front, clear, articulate and never lingers on a point longer than needed. Her use of power point is also always spot on. It provides a clear and refined version of what she would like to put across. 

Prof. Shortis' lecture was about the do's and don'ts of public speaking and PowerPoint. I work with the DSE and I often attend in house presentations that include PowerPoint. I imagine that there will be a time in the future where I will have to give a presentation and use the program myself. I have always avoided using it as I enjoy language as a communication tool and think that most presentations that involve PowerPoint get overrun by the technology. Much like blockbuster movies that forget to include a script and only focus on what images are flashing by on the screen. So the PowerPoint guides were good for me in that they showed me what to do, not to do, and that it can be used well.

The public speaking aspect of the presentation also contained good information. Though I did find the clips shown to be gimmicky.  I would have rather seen footage of a well given speech and have that commented upon. What I did find interesting was the slides on the do's and don'ts. It seems that the most prominent public speakers in current society, politicians, intentionally eschew some of these points for their own benefit. While they are happy to be persuasive and appear confident and self assured quite often they refuse to present ideas clearly, be articulate and respect the audience.