8/24: BLOG: Building WordPress blogs. Identify your goals this semester.

8/27 BLOG: A. CE Prewrite. How do you identify yourself as a consumer? How might you need to change your consumer behavior, and why?

9/5 BLOG: B. CE Rhetorical Analysis. Perform a rhetorical analysis of an advertisement for a commodity you currently own. Create a new ad—with images, slogans, and text—based on your own experience of the commodity.

9/12 BLOG: C. CE Experiment. Sell or gift one commodity in your possession; purchase or receive a used commodity. Stage a series of photographs of the old and new commodities to tell their stories.

9/19 PAGE: D. CE Reflection. Revisit and revise your prewriting materials. Make a statement about consumer culture today, based on your experiences, class discussions, and class materials.

9/21 BLOG: Reflect on how you chose your materials for the consumer essay.

9/28 BLOG: What is the inspiration for your Invention Mob? What is the purpose?

10/15 BLOG: DIY Homework. In the spirit of Google’s free “20% time,” design your own homework assignment related to this course. It could be anything from reading and responding to a relevant article online to performing a social experiment of your own, or something else. Do the homework you design, summarize it in your blog post, and then analyze the value this homework has for you. Think of this assignment as preparation for coming up with a TED Talk topic. Length: minimum 300 words.

10/17 H. PAGE: Document (Individual). Perform a rhetorical analysis of your invention mob’s product. Turn this analysis into a written blog narrative accompanied by photographs, screenshots, and other process-oriented documentation. Post it as a NEW PAGE on your blog site. Include links to your group member’s blog sites and to your final product. Length: At least 1000 words and 4 original images. Draft due before class Monday, Oct 22.

10/21 BLOG: I. Brainstorm ideas for your individual TED Talk. Write a 250-word proposal.

10/26 BLOG: DIY Homework. In the spirit of Google’s free “20% time,” design your own homework assignment related to this course. It could be anything from reading and responding to a relevant article online to performing a social experiment of your own, or something else. Do the homework you design, summarize it in your blog post, and then analyze the value this homework has for you. Length: minimum 300 words.

10/29 BLOG: Complete TED Talk research preparation document: TED Talks (Blank)

10/31 BLOG: J. Research existing perspectives on your topic. Consider primary and secondary sources. Consider popular and peer-reviewed sources. Gather documents and narratives from your own experiences this semester. Create an annotated bibliography of at least 3-5 sources. Draft due by midnight. See assignment details here.

11/7 BLOG: K. Visual Essay. Produce 5-10 original slides. Use photography, charts and diagrams, or a mixture of both to create a photo essay. Revise and develop your slides until you have 10-15 visually interesting and informative ones. Draft due by midnight.

11/14 PAGE: L. Transcript. Put together a transcript of your oral presentation. Length: 6 spoken minutes (about 1000 words).

11/16 M: Produce digital TED Talk for your Blog

11/26: BLOG: In lieu of class, write a blog post (500 words or more) that reflects on your work this semester:

1. Revisit the first blog post you wrote on your goals for this semester. How do you feel about those goals now?
2. Re-read your favorite blog posts / pages. Why are they your favorite? What makes them different from your least favorite posts?
3. Define yourself as a writer, thinker, inventor. Who have you become this semester, and how did you get there?

TED talk project was a fresh challenge to me. Before, I have done some presentations in front of a class of a small number of people.  However, it was the first time for me to prepare a relatively long and more serious professional lecture like this. I had to put much more effort into the writing and editing the 8-minute-long script. It was not very easy to write in a light voice so it sounds easy-going and can captivate the audiences, but at the same time, it had to be very genuine and feasible.

At first, our group had a huge difficulty in arranging our ideas and putting all them together as one strong thesis statement for our project, which was that human is the best technology with emotion. However, we could come up with the best product with the helpful advices made by Dr. Pease from the CommLab. I would say that the if not were CommLab, our script would have turned out to be a total failure with random stuffs projected at the same time. The review of the script with Dr. Pease was very crucial to combine our initially randomly proposed ideas together as a one big idea to support our thesis.

Once the script was done, video recording and editing were not problems to us. We could work happily while filming and editing the video. Andy was the speaker in the video, Thomas was the editor of the video, and I was the director of the video. Andy was ready to accommodate Thomas’ and my advices as the speaker. Thomas had done a fabulous job in technical issues like recording and editing the video. And I kept trying to provide helpful suggestions for both Andy and Thomas about gestures while talking, the speed you read the script in particular parts, camera angles and etc. With a great balance as a team, we were able to finish the project with such an excellent TED Talk.

Here is our group’s video:

I think I need to summarize our second project: professional inventions since this one really gives me an impressing experience. This time, the topic is pretty broad. Thus, we have enough space to let our imagination go. And out theme is about combining technology, or engineering, with arts.

At the very beginning, we didn’t have a single idea about what we were going to do. This idea comes from Michelle. The other group member, Yue Wen, ever wanted to invent some sort of automatic massage machine to cure Cervical Spondylosis. I seemed to be the least creative one in the group. My idea was about to find a way to use electrical engineering for environmental purposes (my major is environmental and the other two are electrical). Making a decision in a group was not so easy. Luckily, we agreed on Michelle’s topic at last. Although this thesis did not sound amazing, it could actually be spread in a surprising way. Our goal was to relate combining engineering and arts to Georgia Tech. Relying on our powerful left-brain modes of thinking, we analyzed the whole process of getting there. Since we wanted to mix both engineering and arts, we first needed to know the differences between them. Then we wanted to know why they were different and how to come across the significant differences to mix them.

Out presentation would start with a picture called “spinning lady”. This picture looked nothing special, but it was the achievement of Yale University after 5 years of studying human brain. According to the direction in which she was spinning in your eyes, we could get a general conclusion about your preference on using your brain.  Next was the introduction to human brain and its functions, especially the differences between the left and the right side. The reasons why we brought up this theme were in important part, which came after the introduction. Three aspects would be demonstrated: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and civil engineering (or environmental engineering).  Two examples (one positive, one negative) would serve as supporting details to each reason. We were likely to take the example of Steven Jobs, an electrical engineer with arts background as the positive example for the first reason. The playbook by Blackberry may be the negative one.  As for mechanical engineering, automobiles would absolutely be good examples. And for civil engineering, the creative civil engineer Frank Wright was worth to consider. After the reasons, we would give our radical statement. We are still working on that.

 

Hello once again my fellow kitchen-mates.  I will be your chef today, and now let’s see what kind of cookies we have baking:

Two other students and I are currently working on a project for our English class. We are making a TED Talk for the assignment. Our subject matter initially started out as proving that computer programmers are creative as opposed to the popular belief that they merely hard-code for hours on end, but after a meeting with a tutor and discussing our idea, we developed it in a slightly different way. Now, we are going to prove that computer programmers use a combination of logic principles and creativity to get their jobs done.

My part of the talk will deal with many examples  and uses of how programmers have used these two tools together to achieve incredible feats in the media world. Some of my examples will also include real life situations that show  how necessary that it is that these two elements be implemented together.

My point also revolves around the idea that programmers have to be creative because their job usually consists of mimicking reality. Many gamers would agree that the best games are the ones that appear the most real to us. Games that keep the player coming back for more are the ones that flourish, and why? It’s because they imitate reality so very closely.

Keep reading as I will post again about the finalized video once the project has been completed.

Well readers, that’s all the cookies we had baking in the oven tonight. Stay tuned.

We used the free class period today to work separately in order to help us be better prepared for our TED Talk. Each of us worked alone, memorizing our parts so that we could finish our filming in an efficient and timely matter. We would rather have worked together on the project today and film it, but travel plans had other ideas, as Abbie and I had flights yesterday and this morning respectively. However, we have worked together diligently in order to create the most coherent, cogent argument that presents a new and visionary idea.

Upon deciding on our idea we each brainstormed for ideas. Each of us then determined an argument in which we had a particular passion; more importantly though, we each found an argument that we truly believed. Despite the fact that we were told that we did not need to find an argument that we agreed with, I believe it is essential to do so. Naturally, an argument that you support will inherently make you more passionate and will give you the drive to find support. These elements combined ultimately helped to create not only the most passionate argument, but also the most logical one.

I truly believe that an assignment of this nature is very beneficial. We are constantly being pushed to think critically and creatively, or else our project would fail. In addition, this project in comparison to the first is more engaging and much more enjoyable in my opinion. This project has forced us to do more, but this is not just busy work, it is work that we will only benefit from in the long run. In the business world we will be challenged to defend our ideas, something that we are doing right now for this group project. As engineers people often complain that we cannot effectively communicate our ideas or work in groups. It is imperative that we develop these skills and this project will help to foster those skills.

To this point, our project has gone well. We have worked together as a group to not just develop our argument. We have brainstormed to find the best idea and support possible. All four of us have brought ideas and hard work to our group. In addition, in our practices Abbie, Christine, Kelsea, and I all came ready to practice as if we were about to film our final project. It is this chemistry that we have as a group that has helped us to be so successful as our group. Once we return from Thanksgiving we will return, excited and ready to work.

As our adventure continues into our professional interventions, groups have begun designing their TedTalks. My TedTalk will be the best, only because my name is actually Ted. Hehe. Anyway our group is doing a talk on sleep. Mainly hitting on the effects of having sleep vs. lack of sleep.

We bring up the history of sleep. Specifically the fact that it has always happened. Sleep is vital. It affects ones memory processing. Here is a common example of sleep and memory processing. Say, I have a test in three days. How should I go about cramming for this. Right answer: study during the day for the two days before and get close to eight hours of sleep at night. Wrong answer: Stay up all night the night before and just study all the way into the test. This is wrong because scientific studies have shown that no sleep kills your memory, so essentially all that studying you did would be wasted because your brain wouldn’t be able to remember it due to lack of sleep.

We also emphasize the fact that sleep is essential to restoration. Without sleep, one’s immune system would be weaker than a toothpick. Not only does sleep help your memory, but it also helps you stay healthy. It seems as though sleep is impulsive to staying on top of classes here at tech. So why do so many people go without it here? Is it effective? We still have to investigate that side of the story.

I have attached the rough introduction of our TedTalk, please let us know what you think.