CTE Expo Reflection (Junior Year)

I'm to the far right, in the bow tie

     Recently I have participated in a CTE Expo, the second time I have done so throughout my years in Web Design so far.  A CTE Expo is a gathering of students in a CTE academy who have decent experience in their line of study and students who may be interested in joining a CTE academy. The purpose of the expo is to inform students who may be interested in joining an academy so they can decide which academy they want to join. Students already in a CTE academy are not trying to convince students to join their academy but are trying to provide interested students with knowledge they can use to make up their minds. Last year to prepare for the expo I prepared a cardboard presentation of business cards to show off how the first year of the academy is about visual design. This year was different, not a cardboard presentation but a digital presentation of the work we did this year (junior year). I made sure that my website was functioning, all links working and the styles looking nice. I needed to make sure I could present to the interested students how the second year is involved with making actually functioning sites and applying visual design skills from the first year to the sites we made, so it was important my site was working. I also needed to show the interested students how the second year takes us into programming with JS, so I used the video game project to do so. I could let the interested students play my game to show an example of what can be done with these skills and swift to the code of the game to display what goes into making it. Finally, I needed to prepare myself for the expo, in other words, make myself presentable. This didn't only mean wearing a nice attire but figuring out how to greet the interested students, how to describe what I've done so for, etc. I prepared an elevator speech in my mind to introduce myself to the students and decided I would go straight into my work, asking the student questions or taking questions from the student along the way.
     During the actual event I tried to stick to my plan but found it was difficult to implement since the interested students weren't all that interested. Many didn't want to talk and conversations with them were dry and awkward. I didn't even try shaking their hands until after the end of our conversations since I thought they would just not do it at the beginning of the conversation due to their shyness. Some things did go well, notable my communication. I was able to eloquently express my ideas and I could see the student was understanding what I was saying. I was able to make sure they took away information to make a decision in the end. Despite the overall anti social tendencies of the students I was able to talk with 10 of them in total and I was able to keep a positive attitude all throughout my conversations I had. Some things could've been improved on my part, however. While the student did understand what I was saying they seemed to feel uncomfortable all throughout the conversation. Only a few students seemed relaxed and open, most were simply closed off. I could perhaps improve on setting a more comfortable aura so I can make more students feel comfortable. Another thing I can work on is getting the student to interact with my work. I ended up mostly playing my game and navigating through my site for the student while he/she just stood there. It would've been better if the student experienced my work for themselves instead of just being shown what it is since they would have first hand information in making their decision so I should improve on my ability to get the students' hands dirty.
     My overall feeling about the expo is that it went well. I was able to do my job of informing the student about the academy very well and the other presenters did a great job as well. We were able to ensure the interested students were able to take away information about the academy to make their decision so we were able to execute the purpose of the expo. We were professional all throughout the expo and despite a few faults we were able to engage the students.