Final Reflection

First of all I would like to thank the team which included a communication module as a core module for Computer Engineering. I chose ES2007S and this module has been an amazing and excellent learning experience for me. I had learnt various things that were involved in exchange of ideas both written (through blogs) and oral communication. Also, I feel that the module did not stop at just teaching us effective communication, but taught various other skills needed to excel in life.

I started to write blogs and comments only after this module. As a beginner, I had difficulty in expressing myself in words and took a long time to write a blog/comment on others’ blog. But now at the end of the semester, I realize that I am able to express myself more easily and in a spontaneous manner.

During my high school days, I remember my teachers talking about eye contact, gestures to be used in conversations, but we never experimented them personally. This module gave me the opportunity to practice what I learnt. As a result, I think I am more confident in presenting than what I was before. Also, I felt that all the opportunities that we were given to speak had dual impact - made us better communicators and at the same time helped us  to learn various other soft skills(like answering interviews, listening, etc ). For e.g. I did my dry run on listening skills and the research that I did on the topic helped me to understand the skill very well.

The proposal writing is something new for me. It taught me how to organise ideas and write it in a convincing manner. Further, the usage of Google docs to write the entire proposal, without meeting each other physically was a new experience which I had gained from the module. Thanks to my teammates; I learnt a lot from this experience.    

On the whole, the module exposed me to various new concepts like generation gap etc. and also helped me to understand the areas where I am good and the areas I need to improve further. I believe that this self realisation is something very crucial to develop. I would like to thank the lecturer Dr Radhika and all other friends who helped me understand this and made this module an enjoyable learning experience.

Oral Presentation Reflection

 Initially, I had a notion that the oral presentation is just like any other presentation where I have to speak on the topic that we had researched and explain our solution. However, the video showed by the lecturer on making effective proposals, helped me understand the various aspects that have to be taken care in an oral presentation such as the importance of target audience.

My part in the proposal was to introduce new solutions by highlighting the drawbacks of current system. So, keeping the audience in mind, I had structured my part so that current efforts can be highlighted first and then talk about the drawbacks. However, after the presentation I learnt that if I had changed my tone, then it would have worked very well with the structure of the presentation. 

I had rehearsed both individually and as a team on the previous day and was quite prepared for the presentation. However, I still realised that I was a bit nervous initially, but later managed to overcome it as I continued speaking. I tried to reduce the pace at which I spoke, but still was felt a bit fast. Another thing I need to improve on is articulation of words properly. I will work on these skills and I strongly believe that there will be a day when I can deliver presentations at the right pace and without getting nervous at the start.  

At the same time I learnt that some of my strengths in presenting are the eye contact, gestures. In fact it was only after peer teaching and oral presentation in this module, I recognised that I had the natural ability to use gestures and eye contact while communicating ideas. On the whole as a group I think we had done pretty well in convincing the audience about our idea and were able to even answer questions which we had not prepared.