What do you think of when you hear a TED talk? I think of a meaningful presentation that teaches you something or hopefully lots of new things. But I also think about the amount of effort the presenter put in to be there, and to be able to present fluently. At Least now, after presenting one in front of my language arts class I do.

We started out by listening to real presentations at the TED environment, picking up introduction ideas, getting ideas for our calls of action, and whatever else we noticed. Then, we picked out a topic. We could present about any topic, it didn’t have to be school related, so I chose “Interpreting Dog Body Language”. It was a broad topic, but when I wrote the script, I was able to include lots of examples. It was also really fun to learn more on the topic, because I love dogs. I feel that it’s important to know what our dog is trying to say to us, because they are our family. Then, we presented. My presentation went well, except for a couple minor technical difficulties. I had decided to have a couple video examples, but they did not load well on the TV. Other than that though, it went pretty well. I made sure to have a lot of pictures of my dog demonstrating the topics, and I also made sure to look up and make eye contact. These ideas were fundamental to keeping my audience’s attention. 

This gave me some empathy for my dad, a doctor, who goes on trips and gives presentations. The process can be tricky, and is easy to procrastinate on, but it is a helpful experience. It was kind of nerve racking to go up in front of my class, but it got me ready for when I am older, and it taught me a lot about my topic. Overall, this was a great end of year project.