Presentation Best Practice Reminders

While I know that my chicken scratch is tough to read, here are a few reminders to consider after the first day of presentations!  
1.  Understand the impact of your position in the room.  If you need to, alter the room to make it work for you.
2.  Eye Contact – try not to focus too much of your EC on the teacher, on your notes, or on the screen.  Better notes, not more, but better = better EC.  Also limiting the words on the slides, if you choose PPT as your method of sharing, will reduce the impulse to read to your audience.
3.  Watch your time – 10 minutes goes fast when you are sharing audio, video, reading to the class, or using other multimodal artifacts. Remember, the research you did was yours, give the audience your highlight reel!
4.  Come ready with a leadoff line – the first greeting you will give your audience.  Also bring a closer – the last line that will signal the audience to clap.
5.  Lastly, while sharing your first level understanding of the material:  plot, character, setting etc.  The best presenters so far have moved quickly beyond that to the analysis of the big questions.