Thursday, March 22, 2012
Experiences of Attending Public Speech
Actually, I don’t like to attend any public speaking except astronomic speech. When I was taking astronomy class in Foothill College, our classroom was like a theater where could be occupy about 200 students. Our astronomy professor, Andrew Fraknoi, who was presenting lively and brightly, has effectively used digital slides, sometimes with music, in the class. His digital slides didn’t have mush words; mostly, they were photos or videos or documental films to reinforce our memories about the content what he has just taught. I really enjoyed the environment he created as if I was watching movie while learning the astronomic knowledge. I also attended many astronomy speeches in the Foothill College campus, and most speakers were reputable astronomers. Because they might be down-to-earth scientists, their presentation media didn’t design well as my expectation. However, they were so popular among the audiences because there were a lot of questions waiting for them to answer after giving speeches. Accordingly, I think using presentation media to effectively enhance the quality of speech will depend on three factors: the speaker’s personality, the content of speech, the room, and the audience’s expectations.
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I think Astronomy is possibly one of the best vehicles for augmenting a presentation with digital media. Seriously, you have so much to work with, because SPACE IS SO FREAKING COOL!!!!! Astronomy in itself is mind-blowing, but when you get pretty pictures to accompany that amazing information the result is so far beyond incredible that I can't even think of a good word for it. I took Astronomy online, and I regret it all the time, because it wasn't anywhere near the same experience as taking it in a planetarium.
ReplyDeleteI remember one of my Astronomy heros, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, said in an interview that astronomers (and astrophysicists) were very simple people, and that instead of coming up with elaborate terminology with roots in Latin for everything they work with, that they prefer simple, basic two-word descriptions for their terminology. Like the "Big Bang," or "Dark Matter." Keeping that mentality in mind, it doesn't surprise me that you found some of the astronomer's presentations a bit lacking on the creative end of things. :)
So cool to find out that you dig astronomy. Hope you are well and see you on Monday!
When looking back and thinking about seeing presentational media used, almost all of the instances have been in the college classroom setting. Visual images and even sounds are very helpful to me, as I am visual learner, so I usually seek out class that use this kind of media. I like how you pinpointed the effectiveness of visual media to those three things. The first, the personality, is very important because this definitely effects how they will interact with the slides. The second, the content of the speech, is also very important because not all information can be taught visually. Third, the setting, is very important also because not all rooms have the same digital capabilities.
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