Lecture 12: Disseminating Information

This week, Module 5, we will be looking at various ways of sharing our own research. We will cover the idea of posters and academic papers as well as have an opportunity in the labs to practise presenting a poster.

On Monday we have a special visitor, Maira Quintanilha will be coming to give us a short presentation on how she made her poster that WON at the AIHN graduate student competition.

Here is a brief bio of Maira:

Maira Quintanilha began her Master in Science program at the Department of Agricultural Food and Nutrition Sciences at University of Alberta in the Fall of 2009 after completing a Bachelors degree in Nutrition and Food Science and the Integrated Dietetic Internship Program from the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil. 

During her Masters degree at the University of Alberta, Maira has received many awards and scholarships including the Dr. Elizabeth A. Donald MSc Fellowship in Human Nutrition, second place in the 2011 Alberta Institute for Human Nutrition graduate poster competition and two Graf tuition awards. She was also a finalist in the prestigious Nestlé Student and Trainee Competition at the Canadian Nutrition Society Conference in 2010. Her research interests include health promotion, building a school environment that facilitates healthy choices, and nutrition education. She defended her Masters thesis in August 2011 and is currently working on her process to become a Registered Dietitian in Canada.

HOMEWORK: There is a slight change as Marie Claude will be giving a guest lecture in the next class so FOR FRIDAY: please bring to class a paper/article that you have to read for one of your other classes


Lecture Part I: Effective Posters

How to Create an Effective Poster Presentation: Guest Lecture by Maira Quintanilha

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Lecture Part II: Academic Essay Writing

Group Essay Writing Activity:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16FhezNuYEFECx8lDy7ctaT2EDkIxoUjDnZquqbwPxS8/edit?hl=en_US

Lecture 12 Introduction to Academic Essays

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•Remember to comment on the blog with any core questions/ideas pertaining to lectures (see Participation on the syllabus) 

Note: I have had a few students ask me about a CV. It is like a résumé, but more detailed. Here is what Colorado State University says:

How a CV is Different from a Resume
Many job search committees for teaching, graduate school, international or research positions request a CV to get a fuller picture of your academic experiences, accomplishments and interests than a resume can provide.
A resume lists your education, experience and skills. Your CV allows you to go beyond listing your relevant experiences and accomplishments; you can also convey the substance of those experiences and accomplishments.
Unlike a resume, which is usually about one page long, CVs vary in length, from about two to five pages, depending on the applicant's relevant experiences.

Pecha ohh Kucha

Last week's lab was fun as usual. The students in the Monday lab formed groups of at least three members each. They clustered according to their programs of study or passions (that were related to their programs of study). After about 45 minutes of 'Pecha' development, it was time to show the whole class what they had prepared. Each group brought something unique in their presentations. These ranged from slide designs to the order of presentations. We had some glitches though, some groups had problems with their 'slide timings'. After each presentation, other students and I evaluated each group's performance and pointed out some areas of public presentation that required some attention. This was a good opportunity for other students watching to acquire some presentation skills.

The Tuesday lab had the same structure with the Monday lab. The students all developed their presentations in about 40 minutes!!! The funny part of it was that we had 50 minutes for the lab since another class was waiting. We managed to get two groups to present their slides. I told the others that they would present theirs in the next lab, with the hope that we will have time.

Pecha Kucha _ quick fun!

The Pecha Kucha lab was a huge success!

I was very impressed with the students' ability to design Powerpoint presentations quickly and work together in groups.

The topics that were covered were:

The Effects of Drinking
Saving the Environment
Depression and University Students
The Health Effects of Drinking

These students are definitley driven to promote health and well-being!


I found this interesting article on Science Daily. Thought some of you might be interested to learn about how we recognize faces - an important aspect of communication.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110929122753.htm


I think this up coming lab this week will be very helpful for the students. Making good posters is not easy!

Lab update

The labs have been going very well and the students are very excited about their Community Service-Learning (CSL) placements! I have students that are completing placements in

Voices for Choices

Writer's Guild of Alberta

Alberta Caregivers Association

U of A's InforLink

and U of A's Sustain SU (Formerly ECOS)

They are using their knowledge, skills and abilities, some of which they previously had and are enhancing and some of which they are developing now, from this course to assist the organizations with their communications, outreach and various other projects. The students have all been posting on their own blog of their experiences with their projects and are in the midst of all the action right now!

In labs we have been troubleshooting issues with, for example, how to deal with organizing all their social media and online tools they are using (e.g. keep the same login and password for all, but what security issues does this pose...?) as well as discussing topics related to balancing community service with school work, "work" work (we all gotta eat!) and trying to have some of a social life. They are just like grad students, I swear! ;)

This coming week we are looking forward to competing the poster activity, and seeing how creative and yet professional we can all be. A lesson learned first-hand in this was creating their professional facebook pages. They look great!

Looking forward to the conintued work these students put forward and learning as much from them as I hope they can learn from me!

Courtney :)

Wednesday Pecha Kucha: Success!

I ran the Wednesday D5&D6 lab with Marie-Claude. The students were very creative in coming up with topics related to their fields of study for the Pecha Kucha. Titles and/or topics are listed as follows:

Nutrition and Food Science Majors:
- "Piggly Wigglies"
- "Obesity"
- "The Hamburger"
-"Western Diet vs. Asian Diet"
- "Why Cows are Great"
- "Raw Food Diet"
- "What Makes a Healthy Diet"

Environmental and Conservation Science/Forestry Majors:
- Topics covered: Forest Types, Flora, Soil Types, Wildlife, Threats, Natural disturbance, Climate and Geography

Human Ecology Majors:
- Topics covered: Areas of Study, Clothing and Textiles, Interior Design, Family Ecology, Child and Youth, Community Diversity, My Practicum

Participants were highly successful in working with the time constraint (20 seconds per slide and 1 minute per speaker)--their discussion was concise and entertaining. They worked very well with the quickly changing visual backdrop, and the slides were highly appealing to look at and imparted just the right amount of information.

This was my first experience with Pecha Kucha and I can see now why it's so popular in so many places!

Pecha Kucha Wednesday and Thursday labs

Now, that Pecha Kucha exercise was fun!

I want to thanks everybody who participated to this week labs!
I was amazed by the creativity that each of you have demonstrated during the Pecha Kucha.

A special thank you as well to all of the students for who English is not their first language. Thank you for accepting the challenge!

Well, we learned that during a presentation one should never panic under stress and one should always stay calm when it doesn't go the way the presentation was planned. We also learned that a good sense of humor is necessary to get you out of troubles!

See you all next week for a new adventure!

Lecture 11: Guest Lecture

Today's guest lecture will be given by Dr. Wendy Doughty. Dr. Doughty will focus on the body language of strong public speaking.


 Please add a comment here about Wendy's talk. Also, please send me three tweets about new things you have learned from this lecture.


Dr. Doughty:

Holds Doctorate (1995) and Master’s degrees in Educational Administration from the University of Alberta. Has a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Guelph. Held increasingly responsible management positions at Grant MacEwan College from 1980 to 1998. Considerable training in group facilitation, program evaluation, applied research and project management. Active community volunteer. is currently a Board member of the Canadian Evaluation Society, Alberta Chapter. Previously Board Chair of Goodwill Industries of Alberta  and Vice-Chair of the Alberta Baroque Music Society. Recognized for her work in community education by being named to Who’s Who of Canadian Women and the Canadian Who’s Who. Has considerable international experience, carrying out a variety of international educational needs assessments and design of programs. This work has taken her twice to Uganda, as well as to Hong Kong and Japan. Member, Canadian Evaluation Society

Uploading Images to Blogger

Students using their U of Alberta gmail addresses have had considerable problems with uploading images. Here is what AICT said:

"Picasa is not an enabled application within our domain. I tested uploading an image from the web, which worked, and an image from my computer, which didn't. It looks like Blogger tries to upload images from your computer into a Picasa album, which, since it's not enabled, does not exist for ualberta accounts. Unfortunately there are no plans to enable Picasa for ualberta accounts. A workaround may be to get your students to create an account on an image hosting site (such as www.imgur.com), then link to those images, or use the upload from the web option to "upload" the picture to their Blogger accounts."

Good thing you all have those flickr accounts anyway! :)


Additionally, adding images via the html method also works as I demonstrated in class:

"If you need some good clip art images, check out 321ClipArt.com.The <IMG> (Image) tag is a 'one-sided' tag and requires several attributes for successfully embedding an image on your page:
SRC=
If you have a graphic image with the filename my_picture.gif then you would enter the filename as the Value for the SRC= attribute, like this:
<IMG SRC="my_picture.gif">WIDTH= and HEIGHT=
You can set the height and width attributes like this:
<IMG SRC="picname.gif" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="200">The numbers I used refer to the image size in PIXELS. The above image would therefore appear on the page as 100 pixels wide, and 200 pixels high.
ALT=
It is ALWAYS a good habit to include the ALT= attribute. Some people turn OFF their browsers ability to display pictures for faster performance, and if you do not have a text description to replace the graphic, they won't be able to do or see much on your site. This is especially important if you have a menu built with graphic menu choices."

Read more at the HTML Clinic.

Image from Matt Northam.

Lecture 10: Courtney Hughes

Today Courtney Hughes, TA to the CSL students, will talk about speeches/public speaking. Her powerpoint lecture will be added here after class.

Lecture 10: Organizing Speeches, Courtney Hughes

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Lecture 9: Speeches

UPDATE: Class is Cancelled Today! See you all on Wednesday.



Today is the introduction to our module on public speaking. We'll start the week's learning by listening to the momentous occasion of Obama's Inaugural Presidential Speech.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

You can also find the text of Obama's speech here.



Group Activity Web Quest Obama makes many historical references. What do you know about the topics in the table below? Google, and see what you can find out. Then fill in the google doc:

http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S273476RkWz



For the final activity, you will need to find some rhetorical/literary devices in Obama's speech. This handout here will be of help. Remember, leave your blog comments on this post.

AlES 204: Lecture 9 - Speeches

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The American Rhetoric website also has an audio recording of Obama's speech.

Module 4 Labs: Pecha Kucha

What is Pecha Kucha?

Pecha Kucha event is one in which a number of presenters share their ideas within the course of an evening. It follows a 20 x 20 format. Each presenter is allowed 20 slides (shown on a programme such as Powerpoint), each shown for 20 seconds each. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. The idea is to keep presentations concise and interest level high.

The word Pecha Kucha (pronounced peCHAtchka) comes from the Japanese word for “chit-chat” and was invented by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in Tokyo. It has recently spread to the business world, and has now gained interest in the world of English Language Teaching.

As you'll see from the syllabus, this week's labs will require you to practise public speaking in a Pecha Kucha style! Now, you won't be expected to speak for 6 minutes OR to have 20 slides prepared. This is just how it is was originally done - so you have some background. We are just going to build on the idea that there are slides running on a powerpoint and you have to talk for a very limited time. Your TAs will have all the information for you and I will look forward to hearing about the fun you had (and of course, I'll hope for pictures).

Here is an example of a Pecha Kucha presentation:

And another Pecha Kucha presentation on the universe:

Lecture 8: Facebook for Business

Today is the last lesson of the week focussing on using Facebook as an opportunity to brand ourselves as great potential employees. We are going to make an online cv that people can "like" and "share." Having this online business presence will illustrate a few obvious elements including:

• your professional profile
• your up-to-date education/work experience etc.
• your online presence

Also, think about some of the not so obvious aspects that you can show via your online cv:

• your creativity
• sense of humour
• you know how to create memorable content
• you know how to harness social media for a business purpose

NOTE: If you are wary of posting certain information online, please come and see me, and we will create a "paper" version of the assignment.

Lecture 8: Facebook for Business (E- C.V.)

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Note: Remember, this assignment forms part of your e-portfolio. It will not be graded separately BUT if you look at the rubric, you will see what you need to complete.

Note: Image found at Meghan Oliver 

DUE DATE EXTENDED to Monday September 26th, 17:00