Important Documents & Links:
Memo - Due 2/15/13 at 5 P.M.
Link to TED Talk Workspace: Unmellow Yellow TED Talk
Agenda for 2/19/13
Genre website proposals
Liudi's Proposal
For the first project, I propose that we create our website to instruct people on how to make a TED talk (surrounding engineering topics). TED talks are the ultimate sign of a good engineer who has mastered many communicative skills. They require the speaker to be a great writer, one who can capture the audience’s attention with his/her words, visuals, and sometimes even demonstrations. Doing our project on TED talks can therefore give us a lot of flexibility in what we write. We can have a section on body language and stage use, one on how to plan and write out what they’re saying, and one on how to use effective visuals and demonstrations. TED talks represent a well thought out presentation, which is crucial in the engineering world. Presentations have to be given for certain occasions such as proposing a new device to your company so it is not only applicable making a TED talk. I also think this is one of the most challenging genres to take on and I like a good challenge. It’s not dull so our classmates will have a fun time going through the website. If anyone in the group isn’t familiar with ted talks, you can check out some good ones including:
http://www.ted.com/talks/quyen_nguyen_color_coded_surgery.html (a TED talk I used as a source for my English final project last semester)
And,
http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_harouni_a_primer_on_3d_printing.html (a TED talk I saw recently that is very interesting; it’s about 3-D printing)
I personally went to a TED talk at Columbia University. I really loved how the some of the speakers presented their thoughts or ideas. However, some were less impressive than others. I would really like to find out what characteristics makes some so engaging and impressive.
Medwin's Proposal
Hey guys, so I’m proposing to do a project on TED talks. The reasoning behind my logic is simple: TED talks are probably one of the most informative ways engineers or those in a scientific field can present information on up and coming projects. Not only are the subjects of TED talks interesting, I feel that it is something that should be mastered by any up and coming engineer (which our website will be geared to). In my opinion, TED talks are the ultimate presentation for those in the engineering field. If we can explain TED talks through our website, we can definitely explain simpler presentations as well.
Work-wise, I believe that we should divide up the work on Thursday and then move on from there. Looking through the textbook, we can definitely use chapter 16 (Preparing and Giving Presentations) as a resource. Also, there are a slew of TED talks online, so finding our original examples shouldn’t be a problem. From there, we can communicate online and work on the website. Of course, all of this is tentative, I’ll wait and see what you guys have to say and compromise my plan.
Brian's Proposal
Hey,
So while I think that doing a project on how to give TED talks is a good idea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we could do a project on how to give instructional/informational videos. The idea is similar to TED talks - we'd be talking about how to communicate effectively verbally, how to make use of props, how to keep the audience engaged, and other similar factors. To make it interesting, we could make videos on how to make instructional/informational videos.
Why do I propose this topic? Well, to put it bluntly, a lot of the info-videos relating to science and engineering I've seen online are boring, too technical, too long, and ineffective at explaining one topic. For example, my research professor was looking for videos describing a particular lab procedure and ended up explaining the procedure to us after he went through over 10 poorly made videos. For our project, we would be able to compare the effective videos to the drab, boring videos and distinguish how to make better videos..
Christian's Proposal
Hello my friends. My apologies to join our group discussion a little bit late. I totally agree on creating a website that does not only inform our audience about the topics of TED talks but also serve as a guide to those who have not yet experience the amazing videos of innovations introduced by the TED talk community.
The reason I would like to propose TED talk for our project, as it seems we all already agreed on, is because of the skills these physicists, engineers, or innovators interact with their audience and how they demonstrate technology made possibilities to make this inventions be experience by the public as well. For example, I was very intrigued by one of the videos that I have watched on superconductors and quantum levitation and quantum locking. Boaz Almong, the guy in the video, says that quantum levitation has been around for a while but due to some technological approaches it has been made possible to present this process of quantum levitation to the public.
To me TED talks demonstrates the types of individuals that are complete in the sense that they know the functions on what is being presented and the characteristic they posses to which they are able to interact with audience with ease. We can do the same. By visualizing their work helps us understand what they are referring to. With this in mind, I am looking forward into speaking further on our actions regarding this project.
Minchang's Proposal
I’m glad everyone is concurring to the TED talk idea. TED talks are perfect for informing the audience in the fields of technology. TED talk also requires not only an eloquent speaker, but also well-prepared presenters and good writers to help prepare the speech. Therefore, a TED talk can help our group develop outstanding group work skills while teaching others on the similar set of skills as well. TED talks are relatively difficult and somewhat tricky to execute because of the various types of audiences. One of our instructions should be on focusing on certain types of audiences or how to generalize an audience without offending any. Moreover, instructing on choosing a topic or a method of presentation that would reach the audience regardless of the audience’s primary predilections. I personally am interested mostly in the presentation and its visual effects on the audience so I can partake in that such of instructions in a typical TED talk.
Seeing how everyone is happy(?) or satisfied with the TED talk instructions idea, I think our group will proceed smoothly to our next steps in completing the projects. By using the TWC textbook and TED talk videos as our informational bank, we can achieve a friendly level of instructing the class.