Today’s Plan:
- Work Log Assignments [1&2 closed; 3&4 open]
- Misinformation Review
- Next Week’s Mini TED Talks
- Presentation Sign Ups
- For Next Class
Work Log Assignments
I’ve caught up in the gradebook and noticed that quite a few people have failed to turn in the Work Log assignments. I’ve closed logs #1 and #2, but if you haven’t turned in #3 and #4, you have until Wednesday. Given how the Corder and Blankenship readings emphasized the importance of time, I don’t want this to be something you crank out in the days leading up to the final presentation.
Misinformation Review
A few people missed Friday’s class, so I wanted to distribute the reading and provide a quick highlight. The second class in our misinformation series, Friday centered around a “Fighting Fake News” workshop report from Yale University’s law school. You should review that report before this coming Friday’s in-class write up.
The report notes the increasing threat misinformation and information overload present to democracy, which requires an informed citizenship deliberating decisions based on trustworthy, quality information. In the eras of print, radio, and television (before, say, the cable explosion of the 1990’s), Journalism (capital “J” indicating the discipline of study as much as the industry) worked to ensure quality information. But in the age of the Internet, Journalism has died to entertainment news–and this death is exacerbated by the creation of social media echo chambers in which one does not have to confront facts that might make one uncomfortable. The problem the report identifies resonates significantly with Miller’s explication of demagoguery.
The report then attempts to map out possible solutions, identify all of the agents in play and hypothesizing how each might contribute to a healthier political and news ecosystem. Those agents are:
- Content Consumers
- Content Creators
- Content Distributors
- Accreditation Systems (can we develop them–if so, from where? The government? Universities/Journalism departments? Private Sector?
- Technological Design
- Market Incentives
- Law
While all of these agents have paths to helping improve our information ecology, we ended Friday’s class critiquing a lot of the suggestions.
I would highlight two of the questions posed by the report:
- Assuming one can identify an objective truth, how do you give people the tools to get that truth?
- Even if you could get people tools to distinguish truth from fiction, would people care enough to use those tools?
Note: Is “care” the right word?
Mini TED Talks
The final presentation asks you to present your final project in a concise, entertaining, engaging, persuasive way. From the time you say “I’m ready,” you will have five minutes to make your presentation. I expect you to use at least 4:30 of this time.
You are welcome to give a talk, provide it is rehearsed and engaging. You can read off a paper for some of the talk, but not the whole thing. If you give a talk, you can accompany it with a handout or a Powerpoint/Slides presentation (which you will turn into Canvas or share with me prior to your presentation so we don’t have to spend time logging in and out of the computer).
You can also pre-record your presentation using a video camera (say your phone) and editing it in Google Rush. Or you can pre-record the audio for a Powerpoint or Google Slide presentation. This is quite easy, and I will show you how to do this later today.
This assignment is inspired by TED Talks, particularly their remediation of longer articles/presentations into talks of 6 minutes or less. Those talk are animated, which is great, but you can certainly achieve a similar level of engagement using still images.
In some cases 5 minutes isn’t enough time to cover the entirety of your final project. You might have written something much longer. As I initially indicated, my expectations for this project is something in the 6-10 page range–traditional academic conference length. But, even if you were reading briskly for the entire 5 minutes, that would come to about 3 and 1/2 pages. In other words, be selective with your five minutes. You might open up with a few sentences describing the total project, but then focus on what was the most interesting discoveries you made. How you end is up to you–but I would consider ending with a clear conclusion, even what you learned from the project, what you consider the significance of the project, and/or what you hope we do differently after hearing your talk.
Grading Rubric:
- Is the presentation between 4:30 and 5:00? [2 points]
- Does the presentation present something smart? unexpected? original? insightful? [Likert 5-4-3-2-1]
- Is the delivery of the presentation, and/or the construction of multimedia elements rehearsed/polished? [3 points]
Adding Audio to a PowerPoint
There’s a few different ways to add audio to a PowerPoint. My favorite way involves using a Voice Recorder on your phone (which has a much better built in mic than most computers). So, for demonstration, I’ll use the Voice Memo. Record. Three dots > Edit.
You can also record audio directly in your slides.
Set Up Slideshow.
Rehearse Timings.
For Next Class
There’s an assignment in Canvas called Final Project Progress Check. In it, you can share whatever progress you’ve made on the final project thus far. On Wednesday, I’ll go around the room and we’ll talk about that progress. You can also ask a question.
If you have a paragraph prepared for me to read, or would like to share an excerpt of your work, that’ll do (you can include that in the Final Project Progress Check.
