Pecha Kucha

I just finished my pecha kucha. I was extremely excited about my idea and I am glad that I did this before I would have students do it because I ran into some bumps in the road. My idea was for students to collaborate in small groups to write a creative story(lighthearted and fun), use a storyboard, and put it in pecha kucha format. I would like for them to use pictures that they drew along pictures they took with a digital camera. In my example, my pictures and power point was too large, where it took a long time to download into voice thread. I then incorporated some pictures I got from the creative commons on Flickr. Now going through the process there would be a few things that I would do differently. I would definitely cut down on the number of high quality pictures, so putting them into voice thread wouldn't take so long. I am not too familiar with lowering the quality on my digital camera, but my scanner at work asked me how I wanted to scan the pictures. I didn't think saving the pictures in the highest quality would be that big of a deal...I was wrong. Also I don't know if I am missing something, but timing out the 20 seconds was a little difficult because I was using my watch while my niece was doing the talking. If students used the timer on the computer, I think it would be easier to know when the 20 seconds was up....I can't believe I didn't think of it before. I would have liked to include music, but I was at a lost on how to do it. Finally I would have like to switch characters, but I think that would have taken up too much of the 20 seconds.

Wrapping up Zen

Reflecting back on Presentation Zen, there were many principles and ideas that I found helpful. I took an old power point presentation with countless words on it and changed it making the whole presentation under 40 words. Truly amazing! I think in the past I was weak in presenting and now I have a "bag of tricks" that will definitely help strengthen me. For example, being in the moment..not dwelling on the past or worry about the future. Sometimes in interviews my mind goes blank and I forget about what I was saying. I have found myself dwelling on this, making it more stressful to answer the next (present) question. Garr's advice on how to improve and become a better presenter was a great icing on the cake. Read and Study, Just Do It, Exercise Your Right Brain and Get Out were all things that I knew, but not always practiced. I think having a reminder like this, sometimes gives me that push I need to reevaluate and look at things a little different.