2018/05/27 Rab Paterson

Presentations 2.0: Modern Presentation Skills for the Digital Age

by Rab Paterson

No matter where people work, in academia, business, or the media, there is a good chance they will be asked to give a presentation of some kind at some point in their career. For academics and teachers, the number of presentations they give goes up dramatically as in their work they are expected to present their research at conferences. While most academics are very knowledgeable in their own subject areas, competent writers via the many dissertations and research papers they have written on their subject, and from taking writing seminars as students, many have had little formal training in modern presentations. As a result, many academics (and other people) present in a way that is counterproductive to the aim of presentations, i.e. the accurate and efficient transmission of concepts, ideas, and information in a way that enables the audience to retain the content of the presentation afterwards. This session addressed this issue by looking at the four pillars of presentations - Advance Planning, Appropriate Content, Advantageous Structure, Amazing Design, and then finished with Awesome Delivery - these are what Patterson calls the 5A’s of professional presenting. Gunma JALT attendees were made aware of major improvements in how they approach preparing for presentations and in the audiences’ reactions to their presentations. Links to materials can be found here.

Rab Paterson is the Principal Instructor for both the Toyo University Center for Global Education’s BEST (Business English Skills and Training) program and the Toyo University-UCLA Extension Center for Global Education’s BEC (Business English Communication) program. In addition, he's the current Director of the Asia Association for Global Studies, a Fellow of The British Royal Asiatic Society, and a Fellow of The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He has a BA(Hons.) in Pacific Asian History and an MA in Pacific Asian Studies from London University’s SOAS, a Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy and an MS in Multidisciplinary Studies from SUNY(Buffalo). Currently, he's a doctoral candidate at University College London’s Institute of Education on the International Education Doctorate program, conducting research on digital literacies. He has presented at many international academic and ed-tech conferences worldwide, given a Showcase presentation for Apple, a Featured Speaker presentation and workshop for JALT at last year’s national conference, a Plenary presentation for JALTCALL, and two TEDx presentations - TEDxTokyoTeachers and TEDxSophiaU. He’s also an Apple Distinguished Educator, an Apple Teacher, a Google Innovator, Trainer, Educator, and Google Educator Group Leader for the West Tokyo GEG, and lives in a semi self-built, eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyle log-house of his own design in the foothills of the Japan Alps with his family, their two dogs and their goat!