Outline for Project 4

There is a problem in the US. 

The bike infrastructure is inefficient and poorly maintained. For the average American, it isn’t designed for optimal everyday use, even despite additional improvements to appeal towards the public. There is also a constant demand for greater road safety for cyclists, such road barriers, or larger bike pathways. First of all, the US isn’t entirely invested in its bike culture, or public transportation; surely every city has it’s public transit to get you to point A to B but it isn’t quite as efficient as per say a car. The entire US transportation infrastructure centralizes around cars, the reason being why we have so few cyclist on the road.

In Denmark’s capital Copenhagen, they have bikes outnumbering cars. People in Denmark cycle on average 688 kilometers each year, the number of cyclists killed per billion kilometers of bicycle traveled stands at 12 relatively. In the US the average cyclist travels 47 kilometers in a year, the number of cyclists killed per billion kilometers of bicycle traveled stands around 44. Even with more cyclist in Denmark riding daily, it resulted in fewer fatal crashes.

The reason why biking is so ideal in Denmark is that the bike paths are relatively wide. It provides space to prevent collisions, side by side riding conversations, and easy flow of traffic. The pathways in Denmark range up to 8 feet or 2.5 meters. In the US that bike path is cut in half at only 4 feet or 1.2 meters. This minimal biking space basically haves you riding alongside the busy traffic.

Denmark isn’t the only place to have a strong bike infrastructure. Places such as London also known to have protected bike lane networks and cycle highways. It was recently recorded through monitoring data that cyclist is 5 times more efficient than car lanes.

Class 15

For our last class, we finished off the semester with our presentations on bicycle advocacy. It was interesting to see what everyone brought to show the class. Each one of us had a story connecting to our speech and it was really intriguing to listen to. Towards the end of class, we were moved into a small study room to finish off the last of our presentations, it was really chill. After our last speech, we nonchalantly started cooking some waffles with Ciarra’s little waffle maker. All in all, this class has taught me a lot of knowledge information on the public speaking that I’ll be sure to use in future speeches.  Was an amazing semester first semester!

Module 4 Reading Response 3

I read the article “When Donald Trump blocks you on Twitter, does he violate the First Amendment?” written by Dennis Baron. My first impression was this is another satirical article about Trump, however, this person was serious about suing Trump. Knight is suing Donald Trump because he says that him blocking certain followers that criticizes his policies violates the First Amendment right. This was brought into court for debate. Through the rest of the article, it brings up the laws of Congress and the President, and conclude that the court has no authority to tell the president how to use their Twitter. Secondly, the president can block whoever he wants, and because of the separation of powers doctrine, the court has no power to stop any sort of action he condemns. So to conclude this article simply, Trump’s Twitter is beyond the reach of the Consitution and he may twitter and block whomever as it is not an exercise of state power.

Module 4 Reading Response 2

Mansplain – a man explaining to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing

It was intriguing what Rebecca Solnit wrote in her novel Men Explain Things To Me. It found it quite comparable to everyday life and most of reality. She goes in depth about a person credibility gender. Personally, the only experience similar to mansplaining that I’ve experienced is the age difference, especially when I was younger. Adults tend to assume they know better, they know what’s right because of their knowledgeableness. Though, that doesn’t mean that every situation between an adult and a child, that the adults are necessarily right. It can essentially go both ways.

Module 4 Reading Response 1

Kathryn Bertine is such an inspiration for hard working athletics, she puts in the effort and habit to create a plan and executing it. He puts all her efforts towards reaching her goal and doesn’t get let down if it doesn’t go as plan, just devise another plan she would likely say. It is interesting to see how she moved from sport to sport excelling in all of them, but not quite reaching the professional level. However, that never discouraged her. Not only is she an all-around athlete she has expertise in writing and filming; what an unusual skill set she has acquired over the years. Also being the first women activist to fight for women’s rights, her life sure is one of a kind.

There are many points in my life where once I was in the zone, nothing was stopping me from reaching my goal. I swam my hardest qualifying for the junior Olympics in 2013 and to even as small of an achievement as reaching platinum in an MMO game, League of Legends. I can agree with Bertine’s determination, that anything is possible if you work hard enough for it.

Discussion of Video Rehearsals for Project 3

Compared to my previous speeches, I thought that this was an improvement. There was less of a need for notecards. As this type of presentation/speech, as I had a visual to correlate what I wanted to convey. Also, pictures speak louder than words. Look back at my rehearsals, I do tend to stutter on some slides, but with more practice, I think it will turn out alright. I believe that even with the visual slide, I need to be detailed in my explanation. Just words on a screen don’t quite mean anything without the words to back it up. Word phrasing could be something to look into more, as I choose better words when transitioning through the slides. As the weeks and months go by, I have noticed subtle changes in my own presentations, due to the amount of practicing we’ve done and prepared for this class.

Discussion of Video Rehearsals for Project 4

For my video rehearsals, I tried my best to avoid following a script. It is a tendency that I noticed myself when viewing my rehearsal videos for presentations. So going into the presentation, I plan to do my speech on the visuals that I prepared. Instead of following my script, I’ll use the knowledge that that I had adsorbed and went along with that. It would then remove the problem of me constant looking at my phone and script reading. Now that I have visuals it made it a lot easier to describe what I was trying to portray. With images I could stay simple statements and point towards my images. Everything was a lot more concise with my power point slides and it provide to be very beneficial for me as a presenter. Overall, what I’ve taken from previewing my rehearsal videos is, being overly prepared just might set you up for failure. If you go into a speech with the a ready mindset whatever obstacles you face will easily be overcome.

Peer Analysis Post for Project 4

The following presentations that went after mine, I learned a lot from the way different people present. Despite how I thought I nailed my presentation, there is still always something to work on. Like my presentation voice or so called YouTube voice. This tools is used to energies your audience, keeping them engage during your speech. That is something that I continue to lack, and need to work on. Also in some of the other presentations I noticed the use of hand gestures, it is a subtle thing to think about, but can also impact your presentation in a great way. It can help you emphasize a point or conclude a statement. For future presentations that I possibly may do later on, I’ll be sure to speak with confidence about my work and use hand gestures. Overall, this final group of presentations has showed me what I need to continue working on to further my own public speaking skills.

Self Assessment/Reflection for Project 4

Being that this was our last presentation in class. I tried to take everything I learned over the semester and pull it into my presentation. All the practices have finally ended up benefiting me, as all my nerves weren’t tense like always. I presented like anything public speaker. I even had a script to go off of my phone, but ended up not even using it. I was surprised how much easier it was when I was aware of the do’s and dont’s of a presentation. Since I had my phone in my hand and the clicker in the other my hands felt well occupied, so I didn’t fidget my fingers; which would of distracted the audience. Overall, I thought this was a solid presentation. I based my speech based on my visuals and went pretty smooth from there. For the most part, I thought I had much better eye contact than usual towards the audience. It felt a lot more engaging as to reading of a phone or script.

Discussion of Sources for Project 4

During my presentation about the US bike infrastructure. I had to pull many statistics and facts about Denmark’s bike culture. I used the statistics from both countries and compared them to one another. The numbers that I pulled out and presented to my audience were from recorded studies in the Denmark. I found basic facts of the bike lane sizes in both countries. (Denmark bike path is 8 ft 2.5 meters long, US bike path is 4 ft 1.2 meters long) I also included London to show how it isn’t just one country that had a successful bike infrastructure. I thought that to empathize how much a struggle it is to bike in the US would advocate for others to want to push for better roads for bike riders. Overall the evidence that I gathered from multiple articles helped me get my point across. I proved how there are more bike fatalities despite the low biking communities population.