Final Send Off

Thank you so much everyone for coming today to our final class.

Thank to you the CSL students who bravely gave wonderful presentations (using Prezzie!) about their placements. They all taught us a lot about not-for-profits organizations and what goes on at the University and in the local area.

Thank you also to the three students, Kelsey, Annalise and Julianna, who created a visual and musical wrap-up of the term using social media! Amazing work!

Lecture 34: Futurecasting

Wow, it is that time of year already - two classes left in the entire term and today will be the final lecture!

Lecture 34: Futurecasting for #ALES204

View more presentations from Jessica Laccetti.

As you know, Wed. we have some fun lined up for us consisting of the sure-to-be informative pecha kucha presentations from our CSL students and a special sum-up from Kelsey MacDonald, Julianna Damer and Annalise Young.


 Here is my own little summary of this term's Ales204 class. I used storify (mentioned in the lecture) to curate some photos, tweets, audioboos and more that were published on the web with our course tag: #ALES204. Enjoy and feel free to comment on the stories themselves (a new feature storify recently added).


Take a look at this prediction for the Future of Science from the Institute for the Future:

A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021

 CNN features map in "A look at 'the future of science' 2021"

Invisibility cloaks. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence. A Facebook for genes. These were just a few of the startling topics IFTF explored at our recent Technology Horizons Program conference on the "Future of Science." More than a dozen scientists from UC Berkeley, Stanford, UC Santa Cruz, Scripps Research Institute, SETI, and private industry shared their edgiest research driving transformations in science. MythBusters' Adam Savage weighed in on the future of science education. All of their presentations were signals supporting IFTF's new "Future of Science" forecast, laid out in a new map titled "A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021." The map focuses on six big stories of science that will play out over the next decade: Decrypting the Brain, Hacking Space, Massively Multiplayer Data, Sea the Future, Strange Matter, and Engineered Evolution. Those stories are emerging from a new ecology of science shifting toward openness, collaboration, reuse, and increased citizen engagement in
scientific research.

We are delighted to share the map with you, under a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. We hope you enjoy it and find it provocative. Think of "A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021" as a star chart of possibility, pointing the way toward opportunities for wonder, knowledge, and insight. Use it to raise questions about how your life and work may change in light of the startling transformations that science may bring about in the next ten years. Indeed, every forecast could be rephrased as a "what if" question. What if you could record your dreams? What if you could design a life form? What if you could launch a company in orbit? Your answers to those questions can help inform decisions in the present. Inside this map, you'll find plenty of space to think.

Ales204 Blog and Analytics

Miarcel Salanthe created Webpages As Graphs, a visualizer applet that will turn any weblink into a graphic form. You can view the graph being plotted in real-time as little colored nodes branch out into snowflake-like patterns. Each color dot represents a certain aspect of the web structure, such as blue if for links, red is for tables, violet for images and so on.
Webpages As Graphs uses Processing, Traer Physics and HTMLParser. Salathe has also provided instructions on how to print out the graph into poster-size.

via PSFK.


Have a look at our own "snowflake"

Image created here. 

Social Media and ALES204 Students

In academia there continues to be a lot (a lot!) of discussion about the pros and cons of allowing (or enabling?!) students to use social media in class. There are quite a few (the majority it seems) of professors and teachers who think students should NOT use laptops or smartphones in class. They are a distraction is the oft' touted reason. Well students of #ALES204, you know I think differently! And, in many of our lectures I've tried to highlight why it is so important that we all learn to become digitally literate. It is more than just using Facebook, but learning to use it for specific purposes (like to promote oneself for a job) and learning to make some aspects of our profiles private. We're also learning that tweeting about research-related information can generate new connections - possibly even with future employees.

So, it is with this in mind that I share with you an infographic sent to me from Jenica Rhee. It is called The Digital Promise. What do you think?

Lecture 14: Strong Presentations and Slideshare

NOTE: No Class on Monday = THANKSGIVING
NO LABS next week!

Lecture 14: PPT Presentation Workshop

View more presentations from Jessica Laccetti.

Death by PowerPoint:

Death by PowerPoint

View more presentations from Alexei Kapterev

Module 5: Slick Presentations

Being a good presenter is not just about using the right words and maintaining strong body language, but it's also about an engaging powerpoint. Here is a post from Jessica Meher that highlights some slick presentations that definitely kill the "death by powerpoint" feeling.


1. Clean Pitch to the Enterprise
Trademark Interactive helps companies improve their pay-per-click campaigns using sophisticated algorithms to control bidding. In this presentation, they’ve boiled down their math to arrive at a critical point that resonates—a 23% improvement—and therein lays the coup. Marketers fall over themselves trying to do 23% better in almost anything.






2. Beautiful Media Barons
TV producers and media companies rely on top-notch presentations to woo the business of prospective advertisers. Discovery Communications, producers of well-known channels including Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and TLC, set the bar high with outstanding presentations that come to life onscreen, such as this one.








3. Hire Me
When was the last time you saw a cover letter packaged up as an online presentation? This presentation shows creative initiative and instantly separates the author from the crowd. It goes without saying that this applicant got the interview. Get ready to see more of these—both cover letters and “presumes.”








4. Dramastic
Translation? Dramastic means dramatic, fantastic, and even a little bit of drastic. So here they are— Dramastic Presentations of the Decade. From climate change to Google search to credit crisis to tweeting from outer space, there’s a presentation for everything.












5. Dear Impassioned Traveler
It’s true; you don’t need a giant designer’s budget to create a presentation that turns heads. Tread Light Travels is an up and coming travel agency offering unique tour programs in Brazil. Their passion and expertise comes through clearly in this presentation, not to mention the great color scheme and effective use of voice-over that leave a lasting impression.










6. Lifting the SlideRocket Hood
To stretch your mind a bit, check out the SlideRocket presentation builder overview. On top of being an excellent presentation in its own right, these slides lift the hood on powerful features not typically associated with presentations, including presentation analytics, live Twitter feeds, lead generation forms, collaboration, web meetings and a gaggle of other innovative capabilities.














7. Presentation News Release
It's always great to link great content with your press releases, and a "presentation news release" may just fit the bill for you. With pleasing music and slide transitions, this presentation no doubt was a boost for Rumblefish.