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deconstructing_innovations_assignment.ppt
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Seven Propaganda/Marketing Techniques Used to Influence Your Thinking

  • Transfer - Associating a familiar visual or audio image that has strong emotional impact with something else to give it a more positive value.
  • Glittering Generalities/Virtue Words - Using positive or virtuous and intangible words that could apply to almost anything to make a specific thing sound really appealing.
  • Bandwagon - Pushing the message that you want to follow or be part of the crowd/group that is using or doing the thing being sold.
  • Plain Folks & Testimonial - Ways to show individuals enjoying/benefiting from the thing you're selling. Testimonials usually come from celebrities while plain folks are people "just like me."
  • Card Stacking & Name Calling (selective information) - Both techniques use lists of positive attributes, but Name Calling also makes a comparison in its list with something else in such a way that you, the observer, will think that other thing is not as good as this thing.  Card Stacking only talks about this thing and ALL its good qualities, but doesn't compare itself directly to anything else.

Assignment - Step 1 - Know how to identify these techniques in advertisements you come in contact with regularly.  If I show you an ad, you should be able to label and describe which technique(s) is/are being used.
Step 2 - Start collecting advertising examples of each of the seven techniques and be ready to fully describe what is being used.
Step 3 - Put your examples into a PowerPoint presentation with one slide per example.  Put the highlighted technique as the title of the slide and only include other techniques on the page if they're also present in the example.
Step 4 - When finished, upload the presentation using the Submit Assignment form above.

Improve and Innovate -

For this in-class only assignment, watch the short slide show below or download the PowerPoint file below and follow the instructions.  The last slide is MY simple example and you may not copy it. You can create your improvement image in either PowerPoint, or in Paint.net (or both, as I did).

Follow the instructions but Be Cleverly Creative with this please.  I'm looking for your "outside-the-box" thinking. The improvement you make needs to be a useful one and realistically possible (e.g. NO time travel). I will expect a submitted file with the image and description neatly on one page.
grade_7_assignment.pptx
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Deconstructing Innovation Assignment -

Picture
Download the **UPDATED (11/29)** file below and follow the steps.

I've included my expectations for the PowerPoint assignment in the file along with grading information.

Blue Card Assignment -

For the technology/innovation you selected on Wednesday, please submit a simple bulleted list in a Word file, with one bullet for each answer to a "5 W's" question:

  • what is it for or what does it do?
  • when was it first known or written about or patented or introduced publicly?
  • where was it first known or seen or used or introduced?
  • who is associated with its first use? (this could be an individual or group)
  • why do you think it came into being - why would somebody invent it? (this is an important question - please answer with care.)
Please use and cite more than one source for each piece of information.
innovations.xls
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File Type: xls
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Invention and Innovation -

Picture
After we finish the slide presentation discussing what has motivated innovation throughout history, download the file linked above, which is a spreadsheet file (innovations.xls) of the list of singular technological moments we went over in the slide presentation.

Your first job is to group the various items in the list into categories representing shared similarities between the inventions.  You decide what categories you want to use, but try to make them as broad as possible.  For example, some of the inventions have to do with transportation, so make that one of the categories. Once you've come up with at least three categories (including Transportation), move the items in the list into those categories.  Don't create a category that has only one item in it.  Remember these are categories of shared similarities, so having only one thing means it isn't sharing a similarity with something else. So, come up with something else as a category. Also, take a look at the questions in the TechAdoptEd article below to help you.

TechAdoptEd: Invention and Innovation

After you have created your categories and moved each item into them, choose three items, one each from any of three different categories, write them on a separate line below each category, and below that, write which of the first 12 TechAdoptEd questions each item answers.  Some items may answer more than one question. If so, write down all the questions it answers. Then save the document and send it back to me through the upload file widget up on the left. 

Fall, 2012:

Picture
LINK: Knowledge Web

James Burke looks at history in a way that is different from the way we usually learn about it.  In his view, things come about because somebody at a certain moment made a new connection between things that other people had made or were talking about - and ended up with something that became more important because of the connections that happened after it.

What was that again?

OK. Just click on the link above that says Knowledge Web.  It will take you to James Burke's website with a video that explains what he's trying to do.  After that you can check out his page of journeys through history based on these connections (by clicking the second Knowledge Web link in the first line of this paragraph).

You can read the connections between
  • Frederick the Great and the Bottle Cap
  • Canned Food and Sociology
  • Mozart and Helicopters
  • Notre Dame Cathedral (the Hunchback's home?) and Chewing Gum
  • Corn Flakes and Communism
  • Goethe and Margarine
  • Wallpaper and Germ Theory

If you look at that list, it's pretty silly sounding, but the connections are there.  Take a look, if you don't believe me...I particularly like the ones that start with Mozart and Goethe (which is why they're linked).

Your Assignment:
Read through as many of the tours as you want, but read through the two I put links on for sure (Mozart and Goethe). You only have to do the following for ONE of the tours.

  1. Try to figure out the overall span of time (from when to when) and how far apart all the different steps along the way are in time.  Now, to do this, you're going to have to be a detective.  For example, starting with Mozart, who died in 1791 and moving to Beaumarchais, who died in 1799 (I had to look that up) but we're told he was active during our War for Independence, which took place between 1775 and 1783, and who influenced Jefferson when he was governor of Virginia - was that before or after he was President of the U.S.? I would then keep doing this for all the people in the span.
  2. Count up and list all the different categories each person was active in during their lives, such as political leader, scientist, musician, writer, poet, athlete, soldier, architect, philosopher, judge, socialite, industrialist, banker, etc.
  3. Create a document that summarizes what you've done in 1 and 2 above. You may want to use Word or Excel or PowerPoint, depending on how you want to present the information.
  4. Either print the document and bring it to class, or send it to me using the homework upload on the upper left side of this page.

Some Helps:

  • James Burke is British so he sometimes says things in ways that we're not used to in America.  For example, the phrase "chattering classes" is meant to describe the artsy, educated crowd who have opinions on everything and don't mind telling you!
  • Goethe has a name that is often used as a "test" by the chattering class types because it isn't pronounced the way it looks.  Because it's German, the closest way to pronounce it for English speakers sounds like "gerta" but you have to make the ' r ' as short as possible.
  • Don't spend too much time looking through all the details about the people listed. You'll get buried in all their accomplishments. Stick with a single piece of information and try to track it down.  If you have to do more than one web search, that's okay, but aim at only trying to find the answer to one thing at any given moment. 
  • Try using timelines (chronologies) to find important moments in time, if you can't find them another way.
  • Be very specific with your search words. Use words that would be on a web page that answers what you're looking for. For example, reign King Louis XV would probably work to tell you when Louis the Fifteenth was on the throne. (Remember: monarchs are usually not on the throne when they're born, but their reigns usually end when they die. So, a king or queen's birth year is probably not the beginning of their reign.) 
  • If you've read this far, I'll give you another video link here that has James Burke actually going over the Mozart journey.  Oh, and look down below all this for a way to help organize the information...
  • Remember, all I'm asking for is the two things in #1 and #2.  You're going to show me the span of years and the marking points along the way for the first one, and a summary list of all the things the people in the list were known for for the second. Use the best way you can to display your information - either Excel, PowerPoint, or Word.


organizer_for_knowledge_web12.xls
File Size: 55 kb
File Type: xls
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Final Assignment - Favorite Song

Many people use the phrase "I love that song" a lot. I'm sure you've said it yourself.

For this assignment, I'm going to give you the opportunity to tell others what your favorite song is. Yes, your ONE favorite song.

Repeat: ONE SONG.

You'll have to give us the exact title of the song, of course, and include the name of someone who performs it, but you cannot speak to us about the performer beyond giving us a name.  Your Favorite Song assignment is not about its performance. It's about the song itself.

I'll expect you to find out when the song was written and who wrote it. If the song ever reached a No. 1 status on one of the charts, that would be useful to let us know, too. Any other details about the song you can find would also be welcome.

But the nitty-gritty part of this assignment is your description of the component(s) of the song that make it your favorite.  You're going to have to deal with at least three of these components IN DETAIL:
  • melody
  • lyrics
  • rhythm
  • harmony
Now, when I say IN DETAIL, I mean you have to say a lot more than "I really like the melody because it makes me feel happy, or sad, or thoughtful, or scared, or like I want to dance."

No, you have to say something more like, "The melody is really interesting. It starts out with a repeating pattern that gets expanded at the end, and makes the singer have to reach up into a high register at the end. When the singer hits those final high notes, it's very exciting because the song builds to a big climax. But you keep hearing the pattern again and again, which helps you listen more carefully to the words." Then you could go on to talk about the important points in the lyrics, and which verbal imagery is most important to you and why. Or you could talk about the ways the rhythm controls the movement of the song - is it driving, or is it rather softly insistent? Or you could mention how the harmonies move in and out of interesting chords that are happily repetitive or amorphous or surprising. And so on.

If you describe the song in detail, somebody else will be able to listen to the song and recognize the points in the song that you are describing. They would then be able to decide more specifically if the effects of the song work for them the way they work for you.

You must have access to a performance of this song, either through your own device or via a download link. Ideally, you could open it up in Audacity and extract clips that illustrate your comments about the song's components. Your presentation will then include those clips surrounded by words describing them.

Your final version of this assignment will be written up and added as a separate page of your website complete with audio clips interspersed throughout.

By the way, this can be any kind of song - a church hymn, a song you learned as a kiddie, an aria from an opera, a song from the radio, whatever - but it MUST include real lyrics and a recognizable melody.

Assignment: Paradox of Choice (Now Due April 9)

Watch the video on the Home page (under Big Ideas) done by Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice.

Be ready to discuss his main points and how you feel about them personally.

Consider these ideas: 
  • What is his Paradox of Choice actually talking about? Have you experienced it yourself?
  • How does having too many choices affect people, according to Schwartz? How does it affect you?
  • How do all these choices come about, and why?
  • How do you think you'd feel if you didn't have a lot of choices in your life?
  • What questions do you still have about what Barry Schwartz was trying to get across?
  • Did he use any "selling" techniques to help us grasp his points?
  • What were the three most memorable parts of his presentation to you?

What you need to do next:

  • Get with a partner, or work alone.
  • Review the ideas in Schwartz's video.
  • Come up with a scenario that would require someone having to deal with some example of the Paradox of Choice
  • Create a presentation that would include all of the following:
  1. A character has to encounter a situation involving choices
  2. The character spends time considering the choices and how to make a decision
  3. The character tries to make a final decision but is thwarted by more than one of the issues discussed by Barry Schwartz in his video
  4. You decide: the character does, or does not, finally make a decision, but describe further in detail what were the specific deciding factors.
  5. Include a follow up to the decision in which we find out how the character probably feels about the final decision (or non-decision) after some time.
To do this presentation, you can create character(s) and settings in Paint.net, or PowerPoint, and tell the story using slides; OR you can create a video podcast with images and narration; OR you can shoot live action footage with student actors and include it in a slide presentation or stand-alone video; OR you can create a many-paneled comic strip (see elsewhere on my website for a site where you can do that for free); or you can write a song or a poem and film yourselves orating or singing the song.

Before you get into the full details of your presentation, please submit a detailed description of your presentation to me for approval, either through this website, or Edmodo.

The final version must be in a form that can be shared online.
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Photos used under Creative Commons from NASA Goddard Photo and Video, nty713
  • Home
  • Lab Works
    • Curriculum Overview
    • Coding Pathways
    • Makers
    • Digital Citizens
    • Project Standards >
      • Slide Presentation Impact
      • Video Tips & Best Practices
    • Grade 4 Activities (2019-20)
  • Cool Links
    • Ham Radio & Electronics >
      • Ham Radio Blog
      • AllStar
    • Trivia
    • Link-A-Day
    • New Tech
    • Study TIps
    • Grade 5 Podcasts
  • Meta-Learning
    • Troubleshooting Equipment >
      • Maintaining and Troubleshooting Computer Equipment
    • Building Guided Pathways
    • Learn Something New
    • For H.A.S. Parents (K-3)
    • For H.A.S. Parents (4-8)
  • Visuals
    • Images >
      • California Missions Map
    • Amusing Videos
    • Financial
    • Industrial Design
    • Learning >
      • Teaching
    • MAKE stuff >
      • Stop Motion
      • Hexaflexagons
      • Discovery Day Projects 2014 "Squash and Stretch"
      • Discovery Day 2016
    • New Tech
    • Sir Ken Robinson
    • State Podcasts (2015) >
      • State Podcasts (2018) (L-A)
      • State Podcasts (2018) (Y-M)