109, UAT, & Me.

    At the beginning of 6.UAT last semester, we had a few presenting tips repeated to us over and over. "Make eye contact." "Use gestures to engage your audience" "Don't be stiff, but don't rock back and forth either." By the end of UAT, most of us were delivering presentations not to a room full of high school students, but to a 15-inch laptop screen. The teaching staff adapted gracefully, and offered equally useful advice on the etiquette of online presentations; however, the reminders to make camera/eye contact, to keep our torsos in frame, and to make visuals that could be read off of the audience's many-sized computer screens, served as a reminder of just how lame presenting online is.

    I think most people have nerves about presenting in person to begin with. And presenting online is even more awkward. Without being physically with an audience, making eye contact and having in-person discussions, and without being able to use your full physicality for pantomime, gesture, or demonstrate, a lot of the subtle but important information that audiences really respond to gets lost over livestream.
    While it is lame, presenting online is absolutely necessary. And while it may make me grumbly, I will absolutely try to present in the most engaging and personable way possible. I'll articulate some of the things I think are really important for me as a presenter and as an audience member.

    Getting into the right headspace is difficult for me when I'm presenting in my apartment. I've noticed that even when I practice a lot, I tend to stutter or use filler words more often while talking. Something that helps is standing while I give presentations in front of a webcam (putting my webcam and monitor as high as possible helps with making this a natural viewing angle). Standing up feels more natural when I'm presenting, because it's something I would be doing in person. It also helps me be more physical, using my hands to gesticulate and highlight my points. 
    Additionally, standing helps me get into the right headspace because when I'm nervous before a presentation, I usually hop up and down a couple times, or do a jumping jack, or something similar to hype myself up. No shame for pre-presentation rituals!

    As a presenter and a listener, it's so easy to get distracted when I'm alone! It's very difficult to focus on my computer for extended web-presentations, and I imagine other people feel the same. Something that helps me is cutting out as much text as possible, and sticking to large, easily-readable figures.
    There's a very practical reason why this is important. As was discussed in 20.109, large figures ensure that people viewing on small laptop screens can still see your data - it's a very different standard than when we were presenting on 5' projector screens.
    As for text, my opinion is that a good PowerPoint presentation has about 0% text. Aside from titles and labels, and maybe an artful quote, why would you write text on a slide? Just... say it. I'd much rather listen to a person walk me through their story than read it!

    Finally, I think that every presentation is a story. Framing it in that sense allows me to develop a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end that (I hope) is easier for an audience to follow. Every story has a purpose, a problem, and some resolution - just like an academic paper! So by leading an audience through some narrative, I hope the overall message and result is more clear. Additionally, it helps me as a presenter know where I am in the presentation, and why I'm talking about what I've put in the presentation.

    By getting into the right headspace for listening or presenting, and by creating presentations that are easier to follow, I hope to both stay engaged and be engaging. It may kinda stink to have to do all of this over Zoom, but at least I can turn my microphone and video off if I need to give myself a quick motivational pep-talk before my turn!

Freitas



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