Category Archives: Module 3

Announcement for Module 3

FOR CLASS 8 — Tuesday, 10/11

Fillet brazing.

We will have class on campus! For the first part of class we will be in Gleeson 213 (the classroom on the second floor of the library with the colorful chairs). For the second part of class we will be outdoors, but we will stay on campus.

Bring a LAPTOP (if convenient) — you can also check out a laptop from the library. We will spend some time catching up on blogs.

Planned class activities:

Individual presentations (postponed from last week). Please review and rehearse your material. Important goals for your talk:

  • making valuable use your time (and ours)
  • evaluating and using appropriate evidence of different kinds
  • evaluating and demonstrating credibility
  • sharing knowledge about some aspect of bikes or bicycling in San Francisco or elsewhere
  • developing your skill in delivery (audience engagement, structure of presentation, voice, posture, and so much more…)

Thinking about Audiences and Communities (Module 3). I’ll ask you to write and talk about communities that are important to you and audiences you’d like to reach.

Impromptu Team Presentations. You’ll work in teams to explore theories of audience and advice about how to reach audiences as a speaker. You’ll present your findings to the class.

Work on blogs. Writing and speaking go together. Writing your blog is an essential part of the work of this class. We’ll work together to make sure everyone can post to their blogs.

Bicycle Fabrication. We’ll have a visit from a San Francisco bicycle framebuilder to talk about how bikes are built and show some of his work.

Duarte on Audience

The first section of Nancy Duarte’s HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations focuses on audience.

The HBR Guide is focused on the needs of presenters in the business world, but Duarte’s ideas may apply to other situations.

You can read Duarte’s first section on Canvas: https://usfca.instructure.com/courses/1568307/pages/duarte-on-audience

Duarte has also given a TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks

and has an extensive website on presentation strategies: http://www.duarte.com 

 

 

Furness on Biketivism

Zach Furness has written a lot about bicycles and politics. In this article, published in the journal Social Epistemology, he discusses a couple of historical examples of bicycle-related activism.

A key idea is that a common technology (the bicycle) can be used for multiple purposes. For example, it can be used for transportation, for fitness, for fun — and it can be used to critique our society, and perhaps as a way of imagining a better world.

For Furness, a key part of using technology in activism is communication. This kind of communication has at least two key parts:

  1. communication with “outside” audiences– the people the activists seek to influence
  2. communication among activists or within groups — participation in movements can create social bonds and “conviviality”

Read Furness’s article on Canvas: https://usfca.instructure.com/courses/1568307/pages/furness-on-biketivism

SF Bike Party Ride Tonight

The monthly SF Bike Party ride is tonight — apparently they are adopting a “tweed” theme, after the tweed-cycling subculture. In the US, tweed cycling is kind of a vestigal offshoot of steampunk. In the UK, “Tweed Runs” are attire-themed rides, where people dress in moderately old-fashioned clothes (according to Wikipedia).

tweed_run

So, the Bike Party is tonight, and the SF Tweed group is riding on November 6th (see Facebook for details but don’t ask me any questions because this is the first I’ve heard of it).

Digital Speech Option

In class, I mentioned an option for S3 or S4, which is…

S5: Digital Speech!

This means making a YouTube video instead of performing your speech live in class.

But seriously, don’t just phone it in — if you choose this option, really make an effort to produce something people would want to watch.

Whether you give a traditional, in-person S3 or you choose the S5 option, same grading structure applies (write-out, rehearsals, self-assessment, and so on).

See linked file for more details and parameters:

coms-195f16-s5-digital-speech

Let me know if you plan to use this option!