Welcome

This site has been designed to serve as an educational resource for presenters of engineering and science.  Supported by Penn State’s Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education, the goal of this web resource is to help students and presenters of engineering and science with their technical presentations. 

The Leonhard Center is dedicated to educating World-Class Engineers.  One feature of a World-Class Engineer is effectiveness in oral communication and this web resource fosters and supports the development of that key attribute.

About this site

This website features videos of presentations from students, faculty, and professionals in the fields of engineering and science. All of the student talks on this site are between six and ten minutes long. The examples of the TED presentations range from six to twenty minutes. For the longer TED talks, there are specific time markers mentioned so that those areas can be focused on if there is not enough time to watch the entire talk. 

There will be several TED speakers featured throughout the site. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  Each year, the TED organization holds a conference and invites innovators from these fields to give talks about their work. This site is grateful to the richness and quality of material that TED provides.  All presenters can learn from the excellent talks that are available from TED and are encouraged to learn more about the TED organization. 

Students, we hope that you can watch these examples and think about how you can continue to develop and strengthen the key elements that are discussed in your own presentations.

Instructors, we hope that you can show these videos in class or as an assignment to your students to assist in teaching the presentation components of your courses.

Effective technical presentations are discussed from four perspectives: structure, speech, delivery, and visual aids.  Discussion questions are provided to initiate group discussion when watched in a classroom setting or as an assignment. Additionally, there is an Exercises section that provides potential assignments and activities.

We would welcome feedback about what other types of material you would find to be helpful and would like to see addressed on this site. Please contact the site editor with questions or suggestions.