My Interpersonal and Written Communication Skills

During my communications and employability course I completed a task for an assignment which involved me and another member of my class creating and presenting a powerpoint presentation about web based communication channels.

To create and present the web based communication channels powerpoint I needed to use my interpersonal and written communication skills. Presenting the powerpoint also involved me using verbal communication skills because I had to speak to the audience while presenting. I used non-verbal communication skills also because I had to communicate using body language and written information which was included in the powerpoint presentation. The interpersonal and written communication skills that I used included presentation and team working skills.

Presentation Skills:

The powerpoint presentation needed to have definitions of a range of web based communication channels and include examples of their usuage including: Blogs, VLogs, Podcasts, Web pages and Video conferencing.

The presentation that I created covered all of the web based commmunication channels that I was tasked with. It included detailed definitions as well as examples of each of the different communication channels. The presentation included images, links to web pages relevant to the topic and also informative video content.

The presentation was targeted at my ICT class and my communications and employability teacher to help inform them about different web based communication channels. I feel the powerpoint presentation was targeted well toward this specific audience and included enough appealing content such as detailed information, images, web page examples and informative video content relevant to the topic.

When I was presenting I maintained a loud and clear voice to keep the audience listening. I maintained the tempo of my voice and tried not to talk to fast so that the audience would be able to understand everything that I was talking about and take it in. I also used a powerful and interesting tone of voice while speaking to my audience in order to keep them enthused. I used strong and powerful body language to ensure that my audience did not get distracted during the presentation and tried to keep the focus of the audience on me. I stood tall and looked at the audience as much as possible when I was speaking to ensure they were listening to me. I maintained eye contact with the audience and used enthusiasitic facial expressions in order to keep my audience interested in what I was saying. I feel I did a good job at maintaining the audience’s attention because everytime I scanned with my eyes the audience they were looking up and listening to the presentation. At the end of my presentation when I asked the audience questions I made sure to nod to what they were asking so that they knew I understood them.

To improve my presentation I could memorize the presentation off by heart next time to ensure that I can focus on only my body language and my tone of voice as I felt using notes may have been a distraction for the audience. If I was focused solely on giving the audience the best presentation experience then I would be overall able to improve the presentation.

At the end of the presentation I asked the audience if they had any questions about the powerpoint and I answered any questions they had. As this was a good technique I could have instead asked questions on each of the slides to get the audience more engaged with the presentation and make the presentation more interactive for the audience. I could also have included more open questions in order to get the whole audience involved in my presentation. That way they would really take in what was being said and leave the presentation feeling informed and knowledgable about the topic.

Teamwork skills:

I was paired with a member of my class and needed to work with them to create a powerpoint presentation that we would eventually present to my ICT class and communications and employability teacher. To complete this task to the best of my ability I needed to use my team working skills.

The powerpoint presentation needed to have definitions of a range of web based communication channels and include examples of their usuage including: Blogs, VLogs, Podcasts, Web pages and Video conferencing.

As there were many sub topics that were needed to be covered for the web based communication channels powerpoint, my partner and I first of all decided which topics each of us would cover. We decided that I would complete half of the powerpoint and cover the definition of web based communication channels, blogs and VLogs sub topics. My partner needed to cover the other half of the powerpoint which included the podcasts, web pages and video conferencing sub topics.

After we had assigned the topics that each of us would cover we set out to complete the powerpoint. The plan was that when we had both completed each half of the powerpoint we would merge all of the slides together into one powerpoint because this made the task of creating the powerpoint much more straightfoward and efficient. When we had finished all of the slides and merged them into one powerpoint we presented it. Me and my partner both presented each of the slides that we had made because we thought this was the most effective way as we would know our own slides better and would be more likely to do a better job at presenting.

Overall the presentation was a success and the work that we had done was equally split up which in turn paid off and we ended up with a quality powerpoint presentation on web based communication channels. I also feel that powerpoint was successful in its purpose of delievering information to a large group because I used all of the correct techniques for drawing a large audience in including detailed information, images, video content, web page examples, questions, good use of body language and a good tone of voice.

Sometimes not all of the audience will grasp the information in the presentation and will want to ask questions about the presentation in order to further their understanding of the presentation topic. It is important for me to ask questions for these types of people so that my presentation will be successful with the whole audience. Types of questions that I could ask the audience to futher their understanding would include: if we look at this slide we can see, if we now consider this slide or what can we learn from this slide.