This is the page for: Public Speaking, Spring 2011
(Course-related content will appear here in reverse chronological order: the newest things at the top of the page, and older posts toward the bottom.)
Uploading your Video
Folks,
A lot of people have told me they’re having trouble uploading videos to Youtube, especially from iPhone 3G.
I don’t know whether Naver is being unfriendly, or you guys don’t use the Internet much, but Google turned up a ton of links like this one, which shows how to do it easily… And if your video is too big, well, then go have a look at Windows Movie Editor (which is free) to resize it.
Come on, folks! It’s the Internet era. The answers to a TON of technical questions are at your fingertips, if you only bother to go and look! You don’t need me holding your hand… I know you can figure this stuff out, if only you go out and search for an answer online. There’s lots of stuff like this that no class or school will ever teach you, but which you can learn if only you try.
Good luck.
I hope that helps.
Signing In to Post Your Video
Hi folks,
There was something I forgot to tell you, which is this:
When you go to Youtube, you will need to use a Google Email account to sign in. Not yours, but one I’ve set up especially for this channel. The account is:
gordsclass@gmail.com
That is the “user name” for the sign-in at YouTube. The password is the one I gave you in class. I will ask our secretary to send you the password once more (as a text message to your phone), in case you lost it.
So go ahead and login, upload your video, and of course submit your transcript to the office (IH341) as soon as you can! I look forward to seeing all your videos. I’ll set up a feedback page and update this site later today!
UPDATE:
Here are the pages for submitting evaluations of your classmates’ speeches. Please be careful: some names look quite similar when written in Roman letters. I’ve listed students in the same order as the attendance sheet, in order to help you.
- Jung-gu Yeo
- Boram Kim
- Minjung Kim
- Juyeon Gong
- Sora Kim
- Hana Park
- Youngdae Won
- Yeonjung You
- Hyeonjung Yoon
- Seul Lee
- Jiyoung Lee
- Mijin Jang
- Yuri Kang
- Minyoung Kim
- Hyeongseok Park
- Jinho Yeom
- Hyunshik Oh
- Kyeongmi Jung
- Youngni Choi
- Jiyoon Heo
Remember, you must evaluate your own speech. I expect more detailed feedback comments — as well as some thoughts on what skills you would like to improve further — in the written feedback section of your own self-assessment.
If there’s a problem with one of the links, just let me know. I tried to test them all but there are a lot so I might have missed one or two!
Finally, as you can see above, there are 20 students in our class. (In fact, though I haven’t checked UCUPS, the gradesheet has 22 names.) This means, unfortunately, that some of you will be getting a lower grade than you deserve. I hate this system, it’s unfair, but there is nothing I can do about it. If you were able to convince Korean professors not to inflate student grades, the curve would not be necessary. But until then, I’m afraid the curve will be unavoidable, in classes of this size.
Please remember that your grade is not an evaluation of you as a person; indeed, because of the damned grading curve, your grade isn’t even a fair evaluation of your work. If you would like to see what grade I feel you earned, the information will be included on the official grade sheets that I will submit at the office. This has been one of my best Public Speaking classes so far, so take heart. (Maybe you can give some speeches against the grading curve system on campus, and get students to do something about it?)
Have a great summer, folks!
The Fallacies Quiz
Here’s a copy of my answer key for the fallacies quiz. (Click the image to see a larger version, or download and save to your computer to view.)
Remember, there were part marks possible for all questions, but I trust any questions you have were discussed in class. While I only give names for the fallacies, you were not required to give the names, only to point out the main logical problem involved in the question. If you’re not sure, you can always look up the name of the fallacy to see whether you’d accurately explained the faulty logic. I’ll quickly review the quizzes, so if there are any questions you’re not sure about, highlight them to draw my attention to them.
I would appreciate if you would review your quizzes and submit them to me by 14 June. If you do not submit a copy of the quiz by that date, I will count your score as a zero, so make sure to hand it in!
Public Speaking Final Exam, v 2.0 (UPDATED)
UPDATE (9 Jun 2011): The deadlines have been revised as per our in-class discussion of the exam process.
ORIGINAL POST: In response to the failure by administration to process a room booking request in a timely manner, we are now implementing the student-designed solution of Public Speaking Final Exam version 2.0.
Students will perform an act of Public Speaking in a public space. In order to qualify as a performance of public speaking, you must:
- speak to an audience, in Korean.
- speak in a “public place” — a subway is possible, but not necessary; on the street is also possible; note, university campuses are NOT allowed.
- make an argument for a proposed solution to a social problem in Korea. Your speech must contain a brief introduction mentioning the problem and suggesting your thesis — which is, how you think the problem should be dealt with. The body of your speech will explore three reasons (two or four are possible, but three is a safe number) why you think this solution is a good idea. The conclusion will sum up the argument and point to other issues you couldn’t deal with but which are pertinent.
- work with a partner so that you have a video of the performance
- upload a copy of the video to a site I’ll give you a link and password for
- write a transcript of your speech, along with any notable audience comments, questions, or responses.
Several deadlines apply (UPDATED!):
- 4:00pm, 22 June 2011: your transcript is due in my mailbox in IH341.
- 5:00pm, 22 June 2011: your video must be uploaded to Youtube — on the channel gordsclass, using the password I gave you in class.
- 11:59pm, 25 June 2011: deadline for viewing all of classmates’ videos (on the gordsclass channel at Youtube) and filling out the feedback form. (Link forthcoming.)
Some advice:
- Avoid trouble. If you are asked to leave by someone who seems likely to hurt you, leave. If you are asked to leave a place of business by the owner, leave — but feel free to speak outside the business.
- Work with a partner. Don’t go alone; a partner can help you if things get weird.
- Know the equipment you’re using. Do a test with your video equipment (iPhone or whatever) to see whether you can get a decent video with audible sound. The better your video, the more likely you will get a decent grade. But don’t be conspicious with your equipment. Don’t use a giant camera, as it will distract the audience.
- Stand out of the crowd. Be the most interesting person your audience has seen all week. Public speaking might be perceived as weird today, but it wasn’t always like that, in Korea or in any country. Be interesting, and at least a few people will listen.
- Review the guidelines above: nothing would be more frustrating than if you went out and gave a speech, only to get home and realize you’d missed some important point.
Good luck and be careful! Go turn some heads, and maybe change some minds!
Booking? What Booking?
Folks, as of last Friday at 5pm, the office had not heard back about the requested room booking we made. As far as I know while writing this, we do not have a room booked for your final exam.
I am not happy, especially since I made the request several weeks ago (on 27 May, but after the office had closed). The room booking request was submitted the following week, on 31 May, which is only a day later than it could have been. Normally the booking would have been completed long ago. It’s frustrating, it’s annoying, but (as I find is often the case) the problem is somewhere up on the hill, and there’s not much I can actually do about it.
(Indeed, I suspect that it’s because Academic Affairs is busy working through room bookings for exams. I don’t know why this huge busywork is necessary — why they don’t just assume people will use their own teaching classrooms for the exam, unless otherwise specified — but I guess bureaucrats need to justify their existence somehow!)
Anyway, this is why no tickets have been put up on the website so far. We’ll talk about what we can do about this situation in class today.
Waiting on a Room Booking
Hi folks.
I asked the office assistant to book a room for our final exam on 7 June. I asked a week ago, and still haven’t heard back. I don’t know why, but I sent another email asking her to book a room for us. I’ll post tickets when I have that information, and hopefully she will have done so by the time our class starts on 2 June. Sorry about the delay!
The Sheets
Here are the sheets for evaluating speakers tonight.
PresentationContestEvaluationSheet-3may2011
Your Midterm
For those looking for a copy of the video of your midterm exam, the BEST way to get it is to go to the Department Office ( IH341) with a USB drive and copy it from the CD available there. You can do it on one of the computers in the office.
However, if you don’t have a USB drive, you can download the file from my website. If you MUST do so, please ONLY download the file once. If you download it more than once, you risk driving my bandwidth usage for the month over my limit and then I will have to pay for it… or, in other words, my website will be offline until the amount gets paid. So download it no more than once, okay?
Here is the link for the video of your midterm:
- Public Speaking Midterm Exam (1.5 gigabyte wmv file)
PLEASE right-click on your mouse and Save As: I don’t have the capacity to stream a video this size from my site.
Since this is a HUGE file, I’m not sure how many of you will be able to download it before my limit is reached. So share with classmates by USB drive if you can!
You can submit your updated self-evaluations to me in class on Tuesday, 24 May. Thanks!
Fallacies, Now No Longer a Draft!
Hi folks!
Well, I came to the website to look at the fallacies page, since I’d promised you a quiz in class on Tuesday. Imagine my shock and horror when I couldn’t find the link.
Turns out I posted it — in the wrong category (that is, in a class from last year). I guess I’m getting old or something…
So anyway, here’s the post, now in its rightful place (see below).
I have a different exercise for tomorrow’s class, don’t you worry. And we’ll have that quiz on Thursday. Oh, and by the way, I was still waiting for that video — it was apparently put into my mailbox on Friday, but I didn’t see it when I looked.
I’m trying to upload the file (and have been trying since the other day) but the network speeds on campus have been awful all weekend, and the file is 1.5 gigabytes and the media center didn’t compress it sufficiently — or cut it into individual files, either. Just in case it isn’t possible to upload it, please bring a USB drive of some kind so you can get a copy of the file on Tuesday.
You can submit your self-evaluations after seeing the video and adding your reaction to the video. Let’s say that’s due on Monday, 23 May. (In my mailbox in IH341 by 5pm.)
Now, for that link to the page on fallacies, see below!
****************
I promised you a page explaining informal (argumentative) fallacies. This is a pretty good page, especially if you have an adblocker. (The advertisements are a bit distracting, but the explanations of the fallacies are pretty good, especially if you clink through the list of links for each type of fallacy, listed on the right side of the page.)
You don’t necessarily need to memorize all the names of the fallacies. Think of them as common “moves” that people make — like dance moves — and remember that it’s more important to remember the “move” than to know the name of each.
Presentation Contest, Final Round
As you know, the Preliminary Round of the Presentation Contest is this week, in four sessions on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon (11/12 May). I have already notified you of your required attendance depending on your class.
However, there is also a Final Round which all students in my class are required to attend. This Final Round is on Monday, 23 May at 6pm in IH267.
Unless you have a serious schedule conflict, you are expected to make allowances for your attendance at this event. You will need to have a very good reason not to attend.