Online Communities (UW COM481 Fall 2024)/Final presentations

On December 2nd and 4th we will be hosting two virtual presentations sessions. Please read the information below carefully.

General Information

You won't be surprised to hear that I expect the final presentations to present your final project for the class. I'm not expecting you to present anything beyond your project, so I've listed the expectations for the presentations and paper in the same section of the syllabus. The paper and the presentation are just two opportunities to showcase the same project. Details about the expectations for final projects are on the relevant section of the syllabus.

If the class were happening in person, everybody would be expected to give feedback during class during a poster session. The sessions will be held online in Canvas asynchronously in a Canvas group discussion forum. [Note: That link will work as presentation groups are finalized but will not work until then.]

I expect everybody to spend around 95 minutes participating on the day they are not presenting (i.e., about the class session length). As a result of the asynchronous nature, I've extended the period that folks can give feedback to 24 hours: from 1:30pm on the day of presentation until 1:30pm the following day.

Structure

The basic structure is going to be as follows:

• Everybody in the class will be sorted into a Canvas group discussion into a group with ~8-9 of your classmates. Each group contains a random selection of 4 or 5 people presenting on Monday and 4 or 5 on Wednesday.
• Presenters will all upload videos on or before 1:30pm on the day they are presenting.
• At some point after 1:30pm on the day they are not presenting, all non-presenters will watch the videos uploaded by their groupmates assigned to present that day and give them feedback to help them revise their work for their final projects.
• A teaching team member will also watch all the videos, look over the uploaded PDF or image material, and give presenters detailed feedback.

Plan: On Your Presenting Day

All students must do two things do two things before 1:30pm on the day they are presenting. You are welcome to do these at any point in advance:

1. Upload your presentation material in PDF, PNG, or JPG to "Final Presentation" dropbox in Canvas. Note that you may need to convert your slides into one of these formats (.pptx doesn't work). I expect most people will upload a slide deck from PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.
2. Upload your video of your 4-7 minute long "pitch" in a message in the Final Presentation Peer Feedback group discussion group on Canvas within their assigned group. You can do this by posting a new message in the thread by replying to my message that includes the list of people in the group. You can include the video by clicking the "Record/Upload Media" button above the text box and then clicking the "Upload Media" post on the follow-up tab. You may need to convert the file format—.mkv may not work, but .mp4 should. If you have trouble uploading your recording, you might consider posting a link to a file-sharing or video-hosting platform instead.

Because there are two different groups presenting, there is no listed due date on the Canvas assignment. Your due date is 1:30pm on the day you are assigned to present. We cannot give any credit for late assignments.

Plan: On Your Feedback Giving Day

All students must do the following thing on the day they are not presenting:

1. At some point after 1:30pm, watch each short video pitch for the 5 people in your assigned group who are presenting that day.
2. After watching each video, spend a minimum of 7 minutes writing a reply to each of the day's presenters' messages in Canvas, giving them feedback on their presentation and pitch. Saying you liked the pitch is fine, but focus on giving substantive, critical feedback that will help each person make concrete changes and improvements to the work in the presentation to produce a better final project. Feel free to ask questions about things you were unclear about. Feel free to give specific suggestions for course material that might be useful or connections that might be helpful. We expect everybody to spend between 7 and 12 minutes giving feedback to each of the day's five presenters in their group.

Each person will give feedback to 4 or 5 others. I expect this assignment will take a maximum of 95 minutes (<7m to watch each video; <12m for each piece of feedback). This is less than the period you normally spend in class and/or watching lectures for the week.

All feedback is due 24 hours after the start of class on the day after you are not presenting (i.e., 1:29 pm on Tuesday or Thursday). Feedback will be graded as part of participation, and I will weigh it to be equivalent to preparation for one case session. I cannot give any credit for late assignments.

Presentation Format: Video Pitches

I am asking you to prepare and share video versions of your presentations as "pitches" for our project.

In terms of the video: we are not expecting anything fancy. I understand that folks are coming to this with different technical skills and working in a variety of living situations due to the pandemic. I will assess you entirely on the content of your presentation and pitch. I will not assess you on the production quality of your video. The pitches should be 4-5 minutes long and not more than 7 minutes in length.

I'm quite open to the nature of the video, but here are some ideas:

• A very easy technique is to join your Zoom meeting by yourself (UW has a subscription to Zoom), share your screen, record the Zoom session with you, and give a talk by yourself. In my experience, the "record to cloud" function is more reliable.
• Alternatively, you can use a "screencast" that records audio of yourself talking while recording video of whatever is on your screen. There are a bunch of tools to do this:
  • Here's information on how to use a built-in screen recorder in Windows 10
  • Here's information on how to do screen recording on Mac OSX
  • Here's a video about how to record yourself using Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows
  • Some people like the following software: Camtasia (proprietary but has a free trial); CamStudio (free/open source software but harder to use). I haven't used either.
• Feel free to use a cellphone video if it's easier.

If you run into trouble, please ask Discord for help. Keep in mind that I use Linux and am unlikely to be able to do much to troubleshoot specific problems. That said, your classmates will likely be of some help. If you figured something out, please help others on Discord. If you've got experience doing this, please help your classmates.

Frequently Asks Questions

What should go into my presentation?

Details are on the on the relevant section of the syllabus.