Research Focus

Lately my research focus has broadened. For the past 8 years I've been mainly focused on written communication and technology. In recent years I've been moving slowly to the educational issues involved with technology, and written communication has provided me with an interesting angle to pursue that research. Even more recently, and this goes back to my days studying technical communication, I've been looking at educational elements found in presentations. "Presentations" is a broad term here and I need to work on defining that for all of the different genres that can be found under this term. Traditionally we think of a presentation as something done either in a classroom or at a business meeting with handouts, etc. This is, indeed, one important type of presentation. However, those of us with a regular teaching schedule rarely think of our weekly lectures as a presentation. It may do us some good in starting to think that way--or maybe it would do me some good to start thinking that way. Because, it makes sense that in the traditional term of a "presentation," the presenters practices the speech several times and coordinates the rhetorical moves that he or she will use. With teachers we sort of conduct an on the fly sort of presentation based on hundreds of hours of experience dealing with students and the topic we're presenting on. After looking back over some research articles I've accumulated, it doesn't appear that the overlap with these different types of presentations readily exists--and it should. Those who provide traditional presentations may learn quite a bit from those who perform presentations on a weekly basis and vice versa. Outlining the rhetorical moves found in all types of presentations would definitely be of value. I haven't found that yet, and if you know of a good resource, please let me know. Otherwise, that may be a good next project.

Duarte Design

The paperwork has been finalized and just needs to be faxed in the morning for the research internship. I'm interested in this project not because of the pay (low), but because of the people involved in the project. I'm going to be tracking down some research in the tech comm / business comm world dealing with professional presentations, etc. I'm familiar with some of this research but an update and review is always a good thing. Also, I feel like my professional presentations are above average because I'm comfortable with public speaking, but of course this doesn't mean what I'm saying is making sense to the audience and I'm always looking to improve. This work will hopefully push me in that direction.

In other news I'm still working on ideas for fcode. More on that to come in later posts.

And, I've returned with motivation toward the augmented reality stuff because of a successful presentation at Computers and Writing this year. My love and interest for this technology is like having a crush on the girl who you know is trouble but you simply can't run away. Ahhhh, the siren that is technology.

One more thing--I've got a lunch set up with a friend of mine from Mindflash. Love brainstorming with this guy and hopefully he and I can grab lunch more often and get fcode going.

Been listening to Pure Cult: The Singles from 84-95 this morning. Not great.

Slideology

A friend introduced me to slideology today. Possibly going to assist in research for the next book in her series.

sketchup

Curious about creating a project around sketchup and engineering students in electrical engineering.

why not?

I have be gone too long. You still working Mr. Blog?

terrible.

aol and the penguin

anyone who has studied technical communication, even at its most basic level, knows that this will most likely fail miserably.

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zuckerberg at sxsw

facebook's mark zuckerberg gave a keynote address sunday during austin's annual sxsw festival. according to the story the woman in charge of the interview, sarah lacy, did a terrible job and the crowd let her know it. this is one of the reasons i miss austin.

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hilarious

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again--wow

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/nyregion/05incentive.html?hp

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Teaching to the Testosterone

anyone else see a problem with this?

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technology management lecture

tonight i attended a lecture by Alexander Manu, Chief Imaginator at InnoSpa International Partners.He specializes in the application of play behavior in strategic innovation methodologies and the creation of compelling user experiences. it was by far the best presentation of the lecture series this quarter. he made a few comparisons that seemed to be at odds with each other, but mainly he was simply an inspirational speaker who obviously had done his homework when it comes to human - technology interaction. because of the ucsb alert the presentation was cut short and we were unable to ask questions. one question i would have asked dealt with the importance of tracking the iterations of certain technologies throughout time and the noted societal impacts. i may just email him. 

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flock rocks

wow. if you haven't already, you need to download flock and simply start using it.

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banff film festival

last night i attended the first of a two night screening of the banff film festival world tour. the most amazing film we saw last night was about the sport of speedflying. this was something i had not heard of before, but basically these people wear skis and a small chute (a smaller version of what you would use to hang glide) and slide right off a cliff and then fly barely above the ground make extremely sharp and tight turns. that one seemed more ridiculous than the base jumpers. here's the trailer--wait for the guy who is ice climbing and the entire piece of ice breaks.

i love this