1. Select a key objective for yourself for the first week and record it in your journal. List all the things you actually did in support of the objective by the time of the first second-week class meeting. (Another term for describing the objective is goal statement; writing about things actually accomplished creates a progress report. When only ideas, intentions, excuses appear that is also meaningful (indicates lack of accomplishment thus far).
2. Conduct library or world wide web (web) research. Prepare a summary for others of what you found. The summary can be a table or other figure. That is suitable as part (most) of preparing an informal talk.
It can also be a page or a text-file to transmit by email or post to the web. [Suggested research topics: how to give a technical talk; how to write a technical report; working in a team; negotiating agreement.]
3. Review a formal request for proposals (RFP) and an associated web universal resource locator (URL).
4. Create a program to separate RFP's in an email list for display on the web.
5. Thinking about the issue posed below, my best advice is to quote Hillel: "That which you would not want done to you do not do unto others." Stories: Carnegie Hall, fish, appreciated; their morals, and the phrases prepare, show and tell, partner, participate, care all say a lot. Write out at least a few sentences about giving or listening to a talk: things to do, behaviors you think should be avoided.
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 13:32:37 -0800 (PST)
From: "A. Student" <false_email@seas.ucla.edu>
To: Allen Klinger <klinger@CS.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Speaking Materials
Could you put a list of do's and do not's of speaking and listening behaviors. If you could also make a list of hand gestures and body languages that are signs that people are (not) listening to the speaker or that the speaker doesn't know what he's talking about. This would be of great benefit to us. I think that in researching this material you might find something of value that you didn't know or have previously forgotten. Save this list electronically and use it for future classes. I find classes like this very beneficial in the transition from college to the business world. If you put a lot of useful tips about making this journey into the real world into a book, you could make a lot of money and benfit the world as well. I would suggest selling it to juniors and graduating seniors. It would make a great graduation gift.
Thanks,
A. Student
6. Write a paragraph about computers and society. How could a project fit in the area you select?
7. Learn how to use citations, abbreviations, references, footnotes, bibliographies. Create a response or critique of either of the following two statements or any other issue of interest to you. March 31, 1997, L.A. Times, p. S2: Black waiters at New York's Argyle hotel ... form a barnstorming team in 1895 ... call themselves the Cuban Giants and speak in gibberish on the field to pass themselves off as Cubans ... In ... two years ..., mostly playing major league teams, the Giants' record is 103-1; UCLA alumnus Jackie Robinson said, ibid., p. S6: A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.
8. Board games (Monopoly, Chess, Checkers) have to some extent been given competition by computer and video technologies. Many such applications involve some form of violence. State how you would structure a Myst-like (good video graphics, conceptual instead of violence story-line) application to diminish group (includes gender, age) divisions in a new, nonviolent and cooperative computer game.
9. Prepare an outline for a talk to recruit partners to a project you would like to do.
10. Draft a title for the project you are interested in working on.
11. Prepare an item to hand in at the third class meeting: include your name and the source of your reading this quarter as the first point on it.
12. Add a second point to the hand-in item describing the type of work you want to contribute to the term project.
13. Indicate the amount of time you spent outside of class this week on the project or reading for this course as a fraction's numerator, and the time you plan to put in next week on these items as its denominator. List these two numbers as the third point in your hand-in item.
14. The slight amount of html inserted in the file /r/www/fweb/cs190/wdsm.html converts email from the listserve into browser-readable matter instead of a jumble. Write a program that formats ascii email to such easier-to-read documents.
15. Subscribe to wordsmith. Plan and start writing software to record the new words and sayings a person learns by reading it daily.
16. The in-class question "Why is the outline you showed via a film transparency any better than the one written on the blackboard (by the first student who presented via a chalk-talk)?" is answerable several ways. Consult the web site files Speaking (http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/three.html) and Read (http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/theart.html). Which statement is most accurate about your own reaction to presentations:
a. I am aided by visual as well as auditory material being available.
b. I like to move around and writing notes about what is said helps me concentrate.
c. Involvement with the action is important to me so I value a spontaneity above organization.
17.Comment on the following material (i.e., write a paragraph stating your reactions to it).
The first rule is be prepared. That means foremost know what you're going to say. One way to do that is to write it down. That can be via an outline: a list of the key points that you will make. An alternative is to write all the words you will say: the text of the talk. If you take this approach by all means do not read the written talk (except in unusual circumstances, as when speaking in a second language - not your mother tongue). If you make up an outline and use it as a visual, remember that things are better understood if an audience can read about the key words while you are speaking complete sentences. Reliance on nonverbal visual processes can increase the rate of idea transfer. It is a good idea to use pictures with outlines that are only words.
18. Prepare a Project Description item (a large number of them are in the file start.html at this web site ... and hence reachable from the home page by selecting Start there). Your item can be your own view of the project you plan to work on, something derived from your reading or interaction with contact people, etc. The idea is to get practice in describing in a few sentences under a title-caption, what is to be accomplished. Please include your name and the word Course if the item is being done as part of your team design effort.
19. Describe the key things you observed in a progress report or journal entry by another student in the class. Where did that person excell? What could have been done to improve the item you read?
20. Write a technically-oriented paragraph designed to convince a person new to the design process to join you in doing a project. State one or two things that could be done (and won't be, under your current team's ideas of the scope of the work) to support your longterm goal.
21. Find a web site with information you would be able to bring to the attention of the class.
22. Find a listserve with information you would be able to bring to the attention of the class, preferably one that sends frequently (monthly, weekly or even daily).
23. This item is your reaction to a web-posted set of design-project and comprehension-oriented text. Please begin by going only once through, carefully reading the file:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/mad.html. (1)
You will hand in your (self-scored) answers to questions in:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/understandq.html (2)
Your answers are on the honor-system, using the thirteen-alternatives. Use the hand-in form:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/quizresp.html (3)
Please do not modify your answers. Score yourself by referring to files:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/understanda.html (4)
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/csd-lanai/fweb/cs190/fig.html (5)
24. What is the single issue you and your partners have yet to resolve about the project? Write out individual statements on this question, exchange them with a partner, then schedule time alone or as a team (whichever seems to best suit your needs) yourself to attend an office hour or to make an appointment with the instructor.
25.Comment on the following material (i.e., write a paragraph stating your reactions to it).
Most classes in the School of Engineering concern existing technology. It seems unrealistic to expect undergraduates to begin thinking about making an advance on the computer hardware, software or systems of the day. Instead of requesting that they seek out ways to improve on products in the marketplace, it would be better to have them design to imitate things already done.
26. Prepare is central to the way the class is organized. This week the Los Angeles Times published:
... Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's reply when asked why his teams have the will to win:
"Everyone has the will to win. Winners have the will to prepare."
List the things you did in the immediate seven-days previously to prepare for success in this project.
27. Write a technical paragraph summarizing the things you learned in your fundamental reading.
28. Create a list of things to do for the following seven days.
29. In a first draft on the required form (under "The proposal for this course ... is as follows:"), a student seeking approval of an individual directed studies course wrote:
"To design, and research the usability of different user interfaces in Gui Interfaces.
This research will involve researching different interfaces, and taking servays. The
final goal of the project is to implement this interface on a web based database
using Java and the Internet Foundation Class."
Revise this submission. Exchange drafts with two other people in the class who are
not in your project team. Come to a consensus about which is the best of the three
versions you have all prepared.
30. Develop a series of figures to describe how to peel an orange (apple, grapefruit). Write text accomplishing that, first without referring to the figures, then using them.
31. As in 30. but for putting socks into a drawer in pairs.
32. As in 30. but for knotting a tie.
33. As in 30. but for storing towels on shelves.
34. Choose an item from the list (orange, socks, tie, towels), complete the appropriate exercise, exchange your result with another person who has done the same task, comment on that person's work in writing, discuss with him/her your views on each piece of work, and working alone formulate a general report on the overall topic. Complete a descriptive title (concise caption), outline, and a paragraph stating the main approach your report takes.