Tag Archives: expedition

Class Report for Day 10 (Thursday 9/22/16)

Presentations

 

three students standing before a powerpoint slide with information about interview subjects
Interview team presents results

In class, we saw some great presentations. Teams of 3 presented findings from our expedition to the Panhandle last week. The teams looked at:

  • the Panhandle soundscape
  • the Panhandle landscape
  • the shared-use path (north side) and its users
  • the pedestrian path (south side) and its users
  • people in the Panhandle (interviews)
slide showing photos of the path and users, indicating unauthorized use and poor pavement conditions
Slide presenting evidence about the pedestrian path in San Francisco’s Panhandle.

Discussion

We discussed a couple of key issues in public speaking, mainly focusing on the pros and cons of working in groups.

Practice

Following the system of Carl Kwan, we practiced transitions between speakers in a group presentation.

Areas for Improvement

A key area for future attention is the conclusion or ending of presentations. Conclusions are weird: it’s not a move we usually make in our everyday conversations. But to make an impact on an audience, a public speaker really needs to nail the conclusion.

This involves at least two aspects:

  1. bringing the energy back up for the closing moments, rather than tapering steadily toward a low-energy closure
  2. ending with a clear, strong statement of key ideas or “take-aways”

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.

A Unnatural History of Golden Gate Park (podcast)

USF Professor David Silver teaches a famed first-year seminar on Golden Gate Park. When I mentioned that we will be exploring the park on bicycles, he recommended this podcast on the history of GGP and the role it plays in the social and ecological life of San Francisco.

Here’s the An Unnatural History of Golden Gate Park site. It was produced by the Studio for Urban Projects.

You can also find An Unnatural History of Golden Gate Park on iTunes.