Technical Communication - (118)

This is one of the most important subjects in the 1st semester of the 1st year. This is not a hard subject but the thing is this is the subject which checks how good your English is. If your are good in English you don't even need to do a past paper before sitting for the final exam. I'm telling this because I only did 2008 past paper before the exam and finally I got an 'A' for this subject.

The importance of the subject is that it affects your GPA. Some of my friends had got all 'A' s except for this subject and finally ended up with getting half scholarships for that semester.

-Tharindu Edirisinghe-

-SLIIT 10'-

TC Presentation - Part 3 (Presentation Day)

On the presentation day, we had lectures and practicals from the morning. Around 3 p.m the lectures were over and we all got together to do rehearsals for the presentation. According to the presentation schedule, our presentation was the last one and so we had to be perfect in our speeches because by the time we presented our solution, the lecturer had seen all the other presentations. The time allocated was from 4.45 p.m to 4.55 p.m.  

These photos were taken while we were practicing for the presentation.

From left to right, Insaaf, Saumy, myself, Ravishan, Rinaz and Pasan.

From left to right, Saumy, Pasan, Rinaz, Insaaf, Ravishan, Danushka and finally myself. 

We all were nervous as it was our first experience of doing a presentation. We went to the 9th floor for the presentation. It was a great relief because only the lecturer (Ms. Ahinsa Vithana) was there when we were delivering our speeches.

We had the presentation slides in a pen drive (we took a copy in another pen drive also as a backup) and Ravishan copied the slides to the computer in the presentation room and turned on the projector. 

I handed over the final report (written) to the lecturer. Then Rinaz started the presentation by delivering his speech. He really did well than I expected. Then Danushka started his speech. He was not fluent in English then, but he had memorized the whole speech which I wrote for him. He didn't even make a single mistake and did his job well. 

Then came Pasan. Although he didn't have much time to practice, he managed to present the content well. Since he was good in the Technology, he described the technical aspects of our solution.  

Then Saumy started delivering his speech. I was always worried about him because he was not good in English  (This led him to repeat all 5 subjects of the 1st semester of  the 1st year). He had memorized the speech but suddenly he got stuck. He tried hard to recall but finally failed. Then he requested Insaaf to continue the presentation.

Insaaf also did well than I expected. The last speech was done by me. I discussed the advantages and the disadvantages of our solution and gave a summary. Finally I asked the lecturer to ask questions if any and to give her comments. She didn't have any question and I knew that because we discussed everything related to our solution from our speeches. 

She told that we were better than other groups and advised Saumy to improve his English. She told that the colors we used for presentation slides were not good, because some of the colors were not appearing properly on the screen. It wasn't our fault, but a technical issue of the projector we used. 

One week later, we received the marks for the presentation. For the written document, we had got 3.6 points out of 4. The lecturer told that we had not used the correct format when giving references. 

For the speeches, points were given out of 6. Ravishan had got 6 and all the others except Saumy had got 5. Saumy had got 3. The average point of the speeches were taken as the final mark for the oral presentation.

Total mark was 8 out of 10. I think our group was the best group who got the maximum points and I'm proud to be the leader of the group.

-Tharindu Edirisinghe-
-SLIIT 10'-

TC Presentation - Part 2 (Getting Prepared)

We had to suggest a suitable application to be added to the SLIIT course web to make the course web popular among the students. As the leader of the team, it was my responsibility to lead my team for a better solution. We got together when we were not having lectures and discussed what to do. Pasan was not coming to SLIIT as he was running his own web designing firm and he was busy with that. Other members were with me all the time and I had the doubt whether Pasan would come for the final presentation. Rinaz promised me that he would bring Pasan some how. 

This picture was taken during the preparations for the presentation. From right to left, myself, Danushka, Infaas and Rinaz. I think Saumy captured the photo. Pasan was absent that day as he always did, so did Ravishan.

We wasted so much of time on discussing what to do without doing something. All the members were suggesting so many things but I felt like many of them were not suitable. Finally we were running out of time and had only three days to finish writing the report, prepare the slide show and get ready for the presentation. 

At last, we came up with a solution. We named it as 'Moodle Personalizer' because using our application the students could personalize the course web as the way they want.

Following are some features of the suggested application.

• Checking email and use social networking website facilities while in the course web.
• Online Dictionary in Sinhala, Tamil and English.
• Youtube video search from the course web.

I started writing the report and within one or two hours I completed the whole report. 

Click Here to download the report (38 KB).

I prepared the power point presentation on my own.

Click Here to download the presentation (2.32 MB).

Next thing was to get prepared for the presentation. I asked the members to take slides that they would like to describe and to prepare speeches on their own. As Pasan was not coming, I prepared a speech for him and emailed to him with the slide show. He promised me that he would come on the day of the presentation. The following day I checked the speeches of the members of the group but all of them were having mistakes. So I had to write speeches for each member on my own. I did it with pleasure. I didn't write a speech for myself. I knew everything about the application because I was the one who suggested it. I knew every thing in the speeches because I wrote them myself. 

Click Here to download the speeches (38 KB).

The day before the presentation was held, we all got together. Even Pasan came for a short period. We practiced doing the presentation. We had to concentrate more on time management because we had to do the presentation within 10 minutes.

-Tharindu Edirisinghe-
-SLIIT 10'-

TC Presentation - Part I (selecting groups)

For the 'Technical Communication - 118' Subject in our 1st year 1st semester of the course, we had to do a group presentation. It was the first and the only academic group activity we had for the 1st semester.

Click here to view the guidelines of the presentation.
Click here to download the document. (26.5 KB)

First we had to form groups of 7 members. We were given freedom to select our members and to elect a leader for the team.

I didn't have many friends at SLIIT then, but only two good friends Isuru and Dhanushka. 

(From left to right : Danushka , Isuru -  This picture was taken during a lab session in the 1st semester) 

Isuru had many friends and so he was chosen for a group by his friends. Danushka agreed to join my group. Then we had two members for our group, Danushka and myself. We needed 5 members more. 

Next day during the tutorial hour, we had to give the name list of the members of our group to the lecturer. Danushka and I were waiting outside the lecture room before the tutorial began. We had around 10 minutes to select members of our group. We asked other students if we could join them but most of them had finished forming their groups so that there were no vacancies for Danushka and me. We were running out of time.

Then we saw two students and I understood that they also were looking to join a group. They were Rinaz and Insaaf. They joined us but still we had to find 3 more members. Insaaf had a friend who was not having a group. That was Saumy and he also joined us. 

Then came Ravishan. He came to us and asked whether he could join us. Then we needed only one member. Ravishan told that he had a friend called Pasan who didn't have a group. Pasan was absent that day (as he always did) but Ravishan promised us that Pasan would join us later. Then our problem was solved. We had 7 members for our group. 

I quickly prepared the name list of our group including the SLIIT registration numbers of the members. Then we had to elect a leader for the group. Ravishan proposed that I should be the leader even though he didn't know me. Danushka seconded it and Rinaz, Insaaf and Saumy also had no objection for that. 

That was my first experience of leading a group at SLIIT. During the tutorial hour, we submitted the group details to the lecturer.

-Tharindu Edirisinghe-
-SLIIT 10'-

Technical Communication (118) - Group Presentation Guidelines

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION - PRESENTATION SKILLS  - YEAR 1 - 2010

SLIIT students have been asked to suggest suitable applications to be added to the student course web of SLIIT (Moodle) to make it more popular among students. Work in groups and prepare your presentations – WRITTEN AND ORAL - suggest a suitable application to be added to the course web.

GUIDELINES:

Present your suggestion as a group:

·       in a 10 minute oral presentation and

·       as a single page A4 size report

ORAL PRESENTATION

1.     Groups of seven each need to be arranged on your own

2.     The presentation should be a PowerPoint presentation with 05 to 06 slides.

3.     Note: Each member of the team will be assessed for the oral presentation on: relevance, clear expression and logical order. The average of the marks collected for the oral presentation will be the mark for the group.

WRITTEN PRESENTATION

1.     Prepare a group report to be presented on the day of the oral presentation to the lecturer concerned.

2.     The report should include:

Abstract

Objectives

Methodology

3.   References should be clearly given at the end of the report.

3.     Ensure all writing is concise, accurate and clear.

4.     Include the names of all members of the team, along with ID numbers, on the reverse side of the report.    

Assessment:

-        group report – 04 marks

-        group oral presentation – 06 marks

Total – 10 marks

NOTE:

Scores on this task will be added to the marks of the final examination.

Dates and time for the oral presentation should be made in consultation with your own lecturer.