More advanced web lecture training

As part of the online training, it is of course important to learn to present yourself in front of a camera. Hi, my name is John Heijligers, and I’m a web lecture director. I have directed many, many, many MOOCS and other online courses throughout the years and I’ve trained many instructors on their way to an authentic presentation. So what is really important when you want to present yourself? First of all, stand up straight. Second, be grounded on the floor so your story will be stable too. Let’s have a look at Charlotte Vonkeman which I trained earlier today. Hey, welcome, Charlotte. Thanks. Welcome in our studio. Nice to have you.

Today, we’re going to look at the way of presenting yourself in front of a camera. Charlotte, what is your current condition? Are you sitting down, standing up or what are you doing? I’m sitting down. You’re sitting down, is it possible to stand up? Sure. Okay. Could you try to for me? I’m starting to frame then. So you’re not completely in frame. Yes, that’s much better. Okay, so let’s try to create a medium shot. So a medium shot is when the lower side of the perspective of the camera is somewhere around your waistline, your belt-line.

That’s it and a little bit like a hand wide on your upper perspective. Yes. That’s a great position. Push it a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit, no problem. Okay? Then it’s nice when maybe that’s not possible right now, or maybe it is, to put some books on the laptop to get your camera of your laptop at eye height so that we can look at each other straight. Is that possible? Do you have any books around you? I already have 25 book stacked under my laptop but I can try to get some more. Yeah, hold on. Well, that looks great. Very good. Yeah, very good. A lot of books underneath your laptop. Yeah. You have a very easy background.

One color, actually, white. That’s very good. Your clothing actually is already very good. It’s contrasting with your background. So very good. I did that especially for today. Wow, great. We feel very special. Let’s continue. The way you are standing right now, how are you’re standing on your feet? Do you have the weight of your body on your toes or on your heels, or in the middle? Somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the middle. Very good. Your feet, people are always standing like this, we have our feet in like a V-shape. Turned out, yeah. Turned out, a little bit turned out. Do you have that too or not? A tiny bit. A tiny bit.

Okay, try to straighten them up so that they’re parallel to each other. Parallel. Yes, that’s parallel now, and try to move your feet so they are at the same height of your shoulders. Right. Now you feel a strange, well, stretching your calves, I guess because we’re not used to standing like this. Yeah, that’s right Is that correct? Okay. We just need one more adjustment and then I’m going to explain why we do this. The knees, how are your knees? Normally we have the knees straight and locked to the back. How is it with you? Are your knees locked? They are not locked, they have a light bend. Very good, that’s your natural way of standing, that’s good.

Not everybody does it but it’s very important not to lock your knees at the back, but keep them a little bit loose. So that’s important. So why do we do this? Well, this is for the flow, of course, and for the breathing. So there are no blockages to breathe and let your voice and your tone and your breathing becomes natural into your body. That’s why we do this. It is a presenters training. So very important too is when you start to present yourself, is to start off with a smile and show your enthusiasm towards your content. This is also important when you create your slides by the way.

Another point is to keep your eyes on the camera, but keep your focus and your mind on the content.

Now we are standing straight up, and now we have the possibility to start working with text. Well, let’s do that. You prepared one or two or three lines, I guess. I did. Yeah, well, I’m going to say when to start, no problem. One thing of course normally we have different kinds of slides. We have 10 slides in a presentation of 3-6 minutes or something, and then we have to go to the next slide. Normally we have a clicker in our hands, that’s why we are standing up, so we need a clicker. We can’t push the arrow button on our laptops. Otherwise, you see like this, become forward and do, we don’t want do that. Yeah. That’s true.

So normally we use a clicker, but now in this case, we don’t need it because you only have one slide, you’re not sharing your screen. You’re not currently having slides, so let’s hear the sentences you prepared for us. So let’s look at your presentation, whenever you’re ready.

Welcome to this lecture about the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, for learning analytics. In this lecture, we’re going to look at how artificial intelligence and machine learning models can be used in online learning platforms and the several benefits they can have for both teachers and students.

The question I always get is what do I do with my arms? Where do I leave them? Are they here or there or? Well, the basic is, leave them alongside your body, and when you start talking, they automatically start working with you so don’t push them to do anything. Let’s leave them alongside your body very relaxed in a relaxed state, and when you start talking, your hands are going to move automatically not like I’m doing right now because I’m manipulating them now, but if you leave them and you’re in your story or in your texts, then they’re going to move automatically. So no worries there. Be well-prepared, very important.

Know where you are in your presentation and where are you going to, where you’re coming from, and so on. Another thing is this. Imagine you can look through the camera, through the lens, into the homes of your students. This helps you to really connect with them and put your content out there.

Just try it. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to this lecture about the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning for learning analytics. ok. In this lecture, we are going to look into how artificial intelligence and machine learning models can be integrated into online learning platforms, and how that may benefit both teachers and students. Well, wow, great. Thank you very much. One last tip. Yeah. Is I saw the arms move naturally by themselves, but if you’re going to use them, use them so don’t be shocked when they do, and you think, “Oh they’re now here.” They came naturally here, but what I’m going to do now with them.

If you experienced that, my hands are moving, just leave them alongside your body again. Now if you move them, they were like they came up here. That’s what they did. Yeah. But it’s the focus on the text that helps you together with your hands and your arms and your body, so the focus helps you to create a state of mind whereas you are the text, you are your presentation. Wow. Did you see the change? What do you think of the tone of voice of Charlotte? How was the flow of her presentation? What do you think of the content, was it clearly presented? Now over to you.

You’re going to create your own web lecture regarding the three elements we just talked about earlier. One, the tone of voice and the upper body movement, so the grounding aspect, the flow of the presentation, that has all to do with preparation, and was the content clearly presented? That also has to do with preparation. Good luck to you…