As part of this course you will either have to:
Both activities involve some form of public speaking (and are weighed equally; 20%), but you get this choice because (1) some people like moderating better than presenting or vice versa and (2) we will likely get into a time crunch if ever single student needs to present in the last two weeks of the course.
You will be asked to make this choice in the second week of class with a Brightspace survey. Please note that maximally 6 persons/discussion group can moderate. If there are more than 6 people per group who would like to moderate, we will make a random selection.
Moderating a Discussion Session
If you moderate one of our discussion sessions, you will be in charge of guiding the discussion for your group that week.
You will do so on the basis of:
- Three pre-selected pieces of content of this week’s contributions from your group. These will be e-mailed to you before 9:00 on the morning of the day you will moderate the discussion.
- One “wildcard” piece, which is picked by you from among all the pieces of content on this website that have not yet been discussed in your group previously.
Discussion sessions last 45 minutes, ideally equally distributed among all four pieces up for discussion.
Never moderated a discussion before? The internet is filled with advice on how to moderate panels or discussions in class, but the reality is that most every discussion’s context is slightly different.
Some tips:
- Be prepared… to be flexible. Since you are dealing with human beings, who are famous for not sticking to the well-laid plains of other human beings, you have to be flexible. So, being prepared means having:
- a good idea of the content under discussion
- a general idea of the order of discussion pieces
- a specific idea of how you would like to kick off the discussion
- an idea about the possible flows of a discussion (where it could lead to, where it should absolutely not lead to)
- It is not your discussion, it is everybody else’s. Do not forefront your opinions, ideas, or that careful plan you had for ‘your discussion’. Do be prepared to give your personal views, examples, clarifications, or throw in a joke, if that helps the flow of the conversation.
- Keep the discussion going, but keep looking for original contributions. ‘Easy talkers’ and/or people that always have an opinion ready can be great for discussions, but variety is the spice of discourse. In my experience, the student that has only listened and not yet contributed to a(ny) discussion, can often bring it to to the next level.
- Find fun in the discussion but do not force controversy. For some people and/or social groups, discussion is akin to trolling or ‘finding the edges’. That never really works in a public setting as your sense of hot takes and/or edgy humor probably do not map 1 to 1 to the sense and sensibilities of others present. In fact, a good discussion is much richer than disagreement alone.
- Don’t be Evil. Simple (but harder than it seems; even Google could not keep that one up). Of course, the lecturer is also ready to step in if the discussion gets overheated or is clearly hurtful to one of the participants.
Digital Futurology Presentation
In your presentations, you will make a prediction about a development that will apply to or take place in a digital phenomenon of your choice. Presentations for this course will be following a Twitter thread style:
- Slide1/Tweet1: “I predict that [development X] will happen to [digital phenomenon Y] in [about Z time].”
- Slide2/Tweet2: Explain digital phenomenon Y:
- in 280 characters or less plus one image
- Slide3/Tweet3: Current status of Development X (in digital phenomenon Y)
- in 280 characters or less plus one image
- Slide4/Tweet4: Reason why you believe Development X will happen (in Z years):
- in 280 characters or less plus one image
- Slide 5/Tweet5: Whether you think it is a good or bad thing that Development X will happen to phenomenon Y (and why).
- in 280 characters or less plus one image
- Slide6/Tweet6: “If you would like to know more about this, I suggest following/reading/watching [online resource/person]
Download Powerpoint Format for the Presentation
Further Details
Don’t forget that you can use #s and @s. Also, follow Twitter character count for links (always 23 characters)!
Only one image/tweet!
Presentations will be short! 5 minutes: 3 minutes talking and 2 minutes for short comments/questions and handover.
Make sure you have a rocksteady connection, working mic and (preferably) webcam as your presentations will take place online via Microsoft Teams.
Hand in the presentation as a Powerpoint or PDF via Brightspace at the latest on Tuesday, December 1 (2020)
Other formats?
Twitter not your style? Think you can do a presentation in the form of Instagram posts or Tiktok clips? I’m all for the idea, so let’s discuss what that would look like!
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