Blogger Demonstration
For the blog demonstration, it was great to be able to teach my peers a skill I had previously learned in my old school, which is designing and using a blog in order to keep your online portfolio organized and creative. Although I had already known how to set up the blog, I decided to redo the process the night before in order to be able to prepare properly for the presentation. As expected, I faced some technical difficulties when preparing the presentation at home as I was trying to design the blog in a way that would make it extremely easy for both the blogger and the reader. I usually am a perfectionist, so every detail of the blog had to be perfect; to the extent to which I spent almost 25 minutes picking the perfect background picture. The powerpoint was made so that it would be easy to follow and understand, although during the presentation explaining the process of putting the right labels and subtitles confused both my peers and my teacher. Explaining the concept of labels, titles, and subtitles in many different ways for everyone to understand took a lot of time, and thus made presenting much harder. Naturally, I like to have things perfectly explained and laid out, so having information that was unclear to my audience stressed me out and I did not move on to the next point until the whole class understood it. During my presentation, I still had the feeling of fear no matter how much I practiced and prepared. Towards the end though, I was able to control these emotions in a better way. Another way to help me overcome these emotions during presentations would be by enhancing dealing with stress using different methods such as breathing techniques before public speaking.
The presentation was made up of screenshots from my laptop screen that I took as I moved through every step from beginning to end, including circles and arrows to make the process easier for the audience. Although the powerpoint took a long time to make, the students were inspired to make one of their own blogs. I was extremely glad that so many students took my idea into consideration and even asked me for help after the presentation and were even writing notes during the demonstration! It made me feel very accomplished, satisfied, and somewhat important to have my peers listen so attentively to the presentation of a project I worked on.
Overall, I felt that I was not nervous at all standing and talking in front of an audience, I was moving around and talking with ease compared to when I usually present. This surprised me, as I usually get nervous during presentations since I like to say and do everything perfectly and so I sometimes become terrified of making mistakes. I learned through this experience that it is always okay to make mistakes, because that is how we learn to do better the next time. Being confident with what I had to offer in this presentation made the experience a whole lot less intimidating than I imagined it to be. I can positively say that I am proud to have experienced such a great improvement in myself. It was comforting for me to be able to reflect on the challenges and improvements I witnessed during this experience and I feel that I would definitely be much less anxious for my next presentation whenever that may be.
Below is an example of a slide from my blog demonstration including a link to the presentation itself!
Click here for the powerpoint
The presentation was made up of screenshots from my laptop screen that I took as I moved through every step from beginning to end, including circles and arrows to make the process easier for the audience. Although the powerpoint took a long time to make, the students were inspired to make one of their own blogs. I was extremely glad that so many students took my idea into consideration and even asked me for help after the presentation and were even writing notes during the demonstration! It made me feel very accomplished, satisfied, and somewhat important to have my peers listen so attentively to the presentation of a project I worked on.
Overall, I felt that I was not nervous at all standing and talking in front of an audience, I was moving around and talking with ease compared to when I usually present. This surprised me, as I usually get nervous during presentations since I like to say and do everything perfectly and so I sometimes become terrified of making mistakes. I learned through this experience that it is always okay to make mistakes, because that is how we learn to do better the next time. Being confident with what I had to offer in this presentation made the experience a whole lot less intimidating than I imagined it to be. I can positively say that I am proud to have experienced such a great improvement in myself. It was comforting for me to be able to reflect on the challenges and improvements I witnessed during this experience and I feel that I would definitely be much less anxious for my next presentation whenever that may be.
Below is an example of a slide from my blog demonstration including a link to the presentation itself!
Click here for the powerpoint
Learning Outcomes reached:
LO1: Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.
By realizing the fact that I could use my skills that I have acquired previously in Blogger, I was able to use this skill in order to help others and attempt to overcome my fear of public speaking.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
By presenting this demonstration, although I was stressed at first, preparing and actually presenting taught me many new skills in public speaking that I never actually had the chance to practice until that day.
Update: (August 20, 2019)
I have had many students ask for help and guidance with creating their own blogs after having introduced this idea to my class. Making a digital portfolio in order to organize all CAS files was a great idea to stay organized and present our experiences in a creative way, and many of my peers seemed to agree on this.
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