VERONICA CARDENAS - POST 1

                                                                                                                                        Veronica Cardenas

My Opinion on the Groups Presentations 

In the class SPC-11am, the professor assigned groups the first few days of class. The group she puts us in is the group of people we are going to be working with for the rest of the semester. I am part of group one, and my group was the first one to present on September 6. First, I am going to say what I liked about my group and then what I did not like. So that being said, what I liked about my group is that first, they all did their work, which is amazing because there are people who really do not care about the class, and by them not doing their work, it affects everyone’s grade in the group if the professor is not flexible. But in this case, the professor is really nice, and I feel like she would definitely understand if someone did not do their work, and she would not count it against the rest of the group. Also, I liked that almost everyone was attentive to any messages I sent to distribute the work evenly. We basically divided the chapters among us. The way we divided it was that three people did chapter one, three people did chapter two, two people did chapter 3, and three people did chapter 4. Another thing that I liked about my group was that everyone kept their work short and simple. They also included pictures on every slide, and some of them even included videos. I was the one who created the whole PowerPoint template. I basically told everyone to put the slides in a Google Doc with their preferred pictures, and what I did was basically transfer everything from those Google Slides to the pretty Google Slides that I was doing. 

On the other hand, what I did not like about my group is that some people decided to leave work at the last minute when we said everything had to be done the day before it was due so that we would be able to send everything to the professor the day it was due. We texted specific members and kept on pushing for them to do their work so that it was faster for me to plug in everything in the pretty Google slides. I had to wait until night for some of them to send their work. The day before presenting, I slept around 3 a.m., finishing the pretty Google slides for the next day. I felt like this was very unacceptable because it is not fair that they had a whole week to do it, and some of them had the audacity to ignore the text messages that were sent out and do it at the last minute, which delayed the work I was doing by a lot, and I slept very late that day. 

 Also, I would have liked it if everyone, including myself, had turned on the cameras so everyone could see us present. This is a public speaking class, and it makes sense for everyone to see the presenter. Also, I did not like how one member of the group did not present and did not show up in the class. I feel like he let down the whole group because this is group work and he had to present even if he did not want to. If you do not like to present, then why choose to take this class? This is a class to interact with others, not just stay behind a screen. 

Another thing I did not like about my group is that almost everyone, including myself, read off the Google slides. I would have preferred if everyone had a script that had more information than the slides; in that way, they read off the script more than the slides. For example, I believed I mumbled a lot because I was really nervous, but I hope in future presentations I get better. I would have also liked it if there were more short entertainment videos so that the rest of the class wouldn't get bored with people just talking and finding out interesting things about videos. But overall, I think me and my group did an excellent job for our first presentation. 

And lastly, I didn't like the order in which we did the presentation because some of them had Wi-Fi issues, and one person didn't present, so we skipped those slides with information, which led to the order of the slides being messy. Apart from my group, now I am going to give my opinion about how groups two and three were presented. I liked how everyone in groups two and three was very engaged in the topic. I liked everyone's explanation and how some of them gave examples. I really liked how some of them were comfortable presenting and didn't need to read the slides word for word, but some of them did read off the slides, which is fine for the first time. I would most definitely improve the reading on the slides and try to make it sound more natural. I liked how every group had many pictures and videos, which gave the slides a good look. I would recommend that they do a script for those who struggle with public speaking, like myself. I believe there was one group that had instrumental music. I really liked how they chose to do that because it brought peace to the presentation and was one good way to capture people's attention.

I also would have liked it if there was more time to present, meaning if there could be two entire class times to present instead of just one. I feel like everyone would feel less pressure and more comfortable when presenting. But overall, everyone did a great job in this first presentation. Although there were some technical difficulties, everyone came in clutch. This is a great class to learn and prepare for public speaking. All that this class teaches will help us improve now and in the future. And most importantly, it would definitely help people like myself to be comfortable with public speaking instead of being shy about it. I hope that in future presentations I get more and more comfortable with presenting. And I would try not to mumble much. In conclusion, I enjoyed everyone's firsts presentations, and i hope everyone improves for future presentations.