Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Exam or wed's blue?

Hi friends,

Studying hard for your exam now! All the best. J

Here’s one for you to read and get off your text books, lecture notes and etc for awhile:

A little pencil was just about to be sent to a shop for sale. Afraid of the big world outside, the pencil asked his maker for some advice. His maker smiled at him and said, 'Remember this:
First, whatever you do, try and leave a mark!
Second, you have the ability to always correct the mistakes you make.
Third, what is important is inside you, not outside you.
Fourth, from time to time, you will undergo a painful sharpening. Do not resist it for it will make you better.

Lastly, be the best you can be, and allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

Cheers
Kent

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Blog Post #5: My Onboard ES2007S Learning Journey

Albert Einstein once said, “Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong”.  As I sail on the ES2007S ship, I see new landscapes and learn new skills along the way.  I dare to say that I have improved in the way I communicate with people as the course has definitely provided me the knowledge to enhance my communication confidence in specific skills such as team work, oral interaction, oral presentation as well as writing.
Despite having the prior awareness in using voice and language effectively to deliver one’s message, this is inadequate to having a good oral presentation. Through the course and tutor’s feedback, I have learnt the importance of analyzing and engaging my audience. This is something which I have often overlooked in the past with the mistaken belief that presentation is just another form of presenting information verbally. However, this should not be the case when the message is to be delivered across effectively as the audience might be busy people with not much time to spare. Another valuable lesson is the gain of self-confidence in presenting without the need to rely on memorizing scripts word for word which I used to. Thus, this enables me to demonstrate appropriate body language, gestures and eye contact as well as variation of tone naturally so as to display confidence and capture the audience attention.
Having said so, there are still rooms for improvements. One of them is the effective handling of Q&A such that every member has equal opportunity to answer questions. With reference to my team presentation, I think that all of them have applied the principles and skills learnt in delivering their contents except during the team Q&A where Zhang Jiao seems to be left out by the team. Instead, I should have taken the initiative to direct related-questions to him so as to strengthen our team dynamics because team performance plays an important role towards a good presentation. Another is to focus on building up my limited vocabulary as words do matter a great deal. They can either make or break communication when the right/wrong word is used.
As for my learning, one of the greatest learning achievements is to resolve conflict amicably through building interpersonal communication, interpreting non-verbal communication cues and fostering intercultural communication which can also be applied in workplace. In the past, being impulsive, I am fearful to be involved in conflicts as I face difficulty resolving which often leads to poor working relationship and team performance. Another is identifying the importance of the 7Cs of powerful writing and applying to writing tasks. This aids in amplification of a good organization and fine language.
After all, having been through the training, I would like to focus on developing my oral interaction skills which is still lacking in me. For instance, during peer feedback, I give good constructive comments with the aim of improving myself and others. But that is not enough; instead I should offer practical and workable suggestions that I have read from articles or my own experience for the individual or team to improve.  This allows me to think critically and communicate effective that are transferrable to my future workplace.
As the course comes to an end, I hope my peers and friends have enjoyed the nice scenery and happy sailing as much as I have. Thank you Ms Happy Goh for making this possible.
(599 words) 

To end off, here's a sharing by engineer and producer Trina Shoemaker on why communication skills are a critical part of an engineers or producers toolbox.

The importance of communication


Thursday, April 14, 2011

My unforgettable day - 14th April 2011

Today is one of my happiest day in school. First, I am happy that the research proposal presentation went smoothly than what I had expected. It has been great working with another group of teammates, Ho Zong, Jerina and Zhang Jiao. Each of them have their strengths such as designing, video and presentation editing. Next, I felt so touched when Ms Goh surprised me with a chocolate birthday cake. Also, thanks Ho Zong and Kar Liang for the present. Finally, this is the first class photo that I have taken in NUS. Hope all of you have enjoyed and gained from this module as much as I do.