All posts by Jonathan Hunt

Waves to Wine Fundraising Ride

Thanks again to Victoria Wade for her talk last week on fundraising events. She challenged us to take part in a charity cycling event.

There are many such events in the San Francisco Bay Area. The most famous is the AIDS/Lifecycle ride every June. It’s a six-day ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles– the dates for 2017 are June 4-10.

Coming right up next weekend is Waves to Wine, a fundraiser for MS (Multiple Sclerosis), September 24-25, 2016.

Lance Fernando, VP of the USF Cycling Club, mentioned his participation in the Tour de Cure, benefiting the American Diabetes Association — there are multiple events around the country each summer and fall.

Register for SF Bike Coalition Intro to Urban Bicycling Class

Register using this link:

Intro to Urban Bicycling

We won’t have our regular class on Tuesday, September 20th.

Instead, we’ll attend a class taught by staffers from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. This class covers essentials of navigating the City on a bike.

The class will be held on Monday, September 26, from 6-7 p.m. If you are unable to attend at this time, please let me know as soon as possible.

Please pre-register for the class NOW using the link above!

To Do: for Thursday, September 15

Tasks for Thursday, September 15.

You should expect to spend approximately 2 hours on these tasks. They are listed here in order of increasing importance.

  1. Email me if you did not receive an invitation to the closed Facebüch group (and you want to receive one). This is for communicating about out-of-class events.
  2. Go to your blog and delete that default “Hello World” post.
  3. Post your in-class writing for today. Feel free to add, subtract, edit, or change what you wrote.
  4. Also write a blog post about anything you wish — try to make it bicycle or public-speaking related. Here’s the key part: make sure to add at least one image to your post. Who wants to read blog posts without pictures (like this one– see what I mean)? Suggestions:
    • favorite bicycle memory
    • favorite place in San Francisco (so far)
    • where you will go when we get you a bike
    • what you want your SF bike to be like
  5. Read this selection from the Arthur Conan Doyle story “The Adventure of Priory School.” This is the Sherlock Holmes story where the detective claims to be able to tell which way a bicycle was going. You can read the whole story if you want.
  6. Look at Chapter 13 from A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. This chapter presents the organizational patterns we discussed in class today. These might be valuable tools for you in the future.

PS: It turns out they DID make a film version of this story, in classic English TV style.

 

Week 4: Finding, Evaluating, and Presenting Evidence

Starting Module 2: Evidence

Google Ngram Viewer graph showing relative frequency, over time, of the words "bicycle" and "bike."
Google Ngram Viewer graph showing relative frequency, over time, of the words “bicycle” and “bike.”

As we move into Module 2, we’ll look at ways of locating, gathering, organizing, and sharing evidence.

Evidence can take many forms, as we discussed in class: statistical data; personal experience; photographs or video; articles or testimony by experts or authorities; archival documents; objects– all these can be seen as evidence.

Our first step is to talk more about the evidence we’ve seen so far, from Bill Strickland’s memories to the pie charts of the San Francisco Voter Survey Summary Memo on Transportation. How was this evidence gathered? How is it presented to audiences?

In the coming weeks, you’ll gather your own evidence and think about how to share it.

You can continue investigating the same topic you’ve worked on before, or you can go in a new direction.

To do for class Tuesday Sept 13:

Here is a link to a short reading for Tuesday:http://usfblogs.usfca.edu/speakingofbicycles/reading/the-great-bicycle-delirium/ (This PDF is password protected — use the password shared in class).

Before Tuesday, please also spend ten minutes watching one of the videos below. You don’t need to watch the whole thing! And feel free to skim around. I’ll ask you to say a few words about one of the videos in class.

These are recordings of lectures given by a professor and a journalist, and I want us to discuss them as examples of using EVIDENCE to talk about CULTURE.  We voted to look at bicycle culture, and we’re beginning a module focusing on evidence.

“From Spokes to Sprockettes: A History of Women and the Bicycle”

https://youtu.be/tmR69ca0cDE?list=PLVCu5fBJVyO-cDwALi4aegFbOZGKteDUl

OR

“A Secret History of Bicycle Cultures 1869-2013”

https://youtu.be/al73ZJJEwyA

Again, spend ten minutes with one of these videos — you can skim through the introductions. If you’re interested, feel free to watch more.

David Binder Research, Summary Memo on Transportation

This report was prepared by David Binder Research. It’s a great example of how our discussion of credibility can be extended to talk about evidence — how to get it, how to use it, and how to evaluate it.

As you examine this report, think about evidence. How was it gathered, and how is it presented?

https://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/DBR-SF-Voter-Transportation-Research-Summary1.pdf

Trouble posting videos?

You may have difficulty posting videos directly to your WordPress blog.

Try these alternatives:

  1. YouTube, Vimeo, or some other video-hosting service. It’s easy (and free) to make an account. Post your video there and paste the link into a WordPress blog post. You can “format” the post as a Video post if you want (do this with a button on the right side of the “Add New Post” screen). —->
  2. You can also use Zoom — it’s actually a videoconferencing tool, but you can use it to record and host video. https://usfca.zoom.us
  3. If all else fails, email the videos to me using your usfca account. Google will upload the video to your Drive and send me a link. Then write a post to your blog explaining that you did this (this helps me keep track of things later on in the semester).

Same instructions as a screenshot

Video Rehearsal

Procedure

Use your device (e.g. computer, tablet, phone) to record yourself delivering your presentation.

The video should show a complete run-though, without any cuts or edits. If you mess up, that’s fine.

Try varying your approach:

  • stand far away from your recording device
  • going to a different place (such as an empty classroom)
  • work with a partner or a friend

Post each rehearsal recording as a separate post to your WordPress blog.

IMPORTANT: Tag each post according to the assignment instructions. Without the correct tags, it may be hard for course partners, peers, and the instructor to work with you on your preparation.

Practice, practice, practice!

Practice and rehearsal are essential for successful public speaking.

Caveat: Yes, many people can do pretty well with impromptu speaking, especially if they have experience with the context. But

Factors that might influence your decision about how much to practice and what kind of rehearsal would be best:

  • The stakes. The higher the stakes, the more you should rehearse.
  • Your level of experience. If you are very familiar with the context or the audience, you might change your rehearsal strategy.
  • Your grasp of the content. A research presentation and a wedding toast both benefit from preparation, but mastering the delivery of the complex content of a research presentation might require a lot more preparation and rehearsal.

If you don’t believe me, listen to TJ Walker, a communications consultant writing in Forbes magazine. Walker writes:

Yes, you should rehearse. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. From a presentation coach’s perspective, the following sentence is the dumbest in the English language: “I don’t want to rehearse because I don’t want to seem canned; I want to seem spontaneous and fresh, so I had better wing it.”

He strongly recommends video rehearsal—read the details here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjwalker/2011/06/07/should-i-rehearse-and-for-how-long-presentation-training/#35fb888a66a1

Due to time constraints, I won’t be able to watch all your videos, but I’ll scan through them and give feedback as I’m able.

 

Expedition: Giro di San Francisco

This weekend, San Francisco hosts the Giro di San Francisco criterium (a bicycle race composed of many short laps). The race is held near the Embarcardero and Levi Strauss Plaza.

This historic race has been run in San Francisco since the mid-1970s. It’s fun to watch—the race has many short laps (known as “criterium racing”), so you get the see the riders pass by every minute or so.

The races run all day on Labor Day, Monday, September 5, 2016 (the first race is at 8:00 a.m. and the last race starts at 3:00 p.m.

More info here: http://media.wix.com/ugd/eb74ca_4d6a6ec072864f25b2be030e64b9f947.pdf

Here’s a short promo filmed in 2011:

 

If you go, be sure to leave time to walk up the astonishing Filbert Steps to Coit Tower — a really unique San Francisco experience.

map showing Battery & Union, San Francisco
Battery St. & Union St.