Significant Bits
CSC 211 - Computer Organization and Architecture - Weinman
Introduction
Each of you will present one brief overview/preview/insight/review
of a recent development in the broad area of computer
systems. As lifelong learners, following technological
developments in the popular and technical press as well as research
publication venues is an important practice. Your job is to inform
us, at a high level, about something that relates to the course material.
The relation could be more in principle and goal, rather than necessarily
a particular topic from the syllabus.
Content
Your presentation should include what the development is,
why it is important, a bit about how it is/was done,
and perhaps something on who did it. You are asked to do
just one during the semester, so find something interesting and share
it with us!
Schedule
The presentation schedule can be found on the course Wiki. (You must
sign up for a time-slot by Monday 31 August.)
On the day you present, you must be absolutely ready to
go at the beginning of class (11 am sharp!). This means coming
in early (10-15 minutes before class) to prepare yourself and any
technology aids you are using. I will stop you at 5 minutes past the
hour so we can proceed to the rest of the day's material.
E-mail your proposal for a selected topic/news story/article/etc to
the instructor as soon as you decide, but no later than one class
week (akin to business day) before you
are to present. Thus, if you are presenting in week 8, you must submit
your selection by the corresponding day in week 7.
No two bits will be allowed on the same (more or less) topic/story.
Thus, selection is first come first served (FCFS in the lingo you
will learn). There are a plethora of things happening, though, so
I don't foresee any problems.
Evaluation
You will be asked to make presentations throughout your career, sometimes
on your own work, but often on others'. More often than not, you will
be very pressed for time. Because our class meets before lunch, we
have a lot of things to cover, and your peers are likely to need some
distraction from hunger, the expectations are quite high for an exciting
five minute tour of some interesting work.
These types of activities are as important as the homework assignments
you do; thus it will count as an aditional assignment and I expect
a reasonable amount of time will be spent preparing and researching
your newsworthy topic. Using a ternary grading scale, your presentation
(remember, it is brief!) will therefore be evaluated on the following
criteria:
- Motivation
- Is the context for the key ideas clearly established?
- Clarity
- Is the presentation made so that the desired content
(above) is easily understood?
- Preparation
- Is the presentation adequately prepared and the presenter
sufficiently knowledgable about the material and its context?
- Materials
- Are the visual aids, clear, correct, and helping to
anchor the presentation?
- Appeal
- Is the presenter engaging? Does the presentation create
interest? Is there eye contact, enunciation, and no distracting mannerisms?
To check that your presentation fits within the alloted time, and
to increase your preparation, clarity, and appeal,
I strongly suggest that you practice at least once, if
not twice. (It is only five minutes, after all.) And don't be nervous!
We're all here listening with eager ears.
Resources
The following resources offer proceedings from peer-reviewed research
conferences, professional and technical society news feeds, and reporting
targeted at general consumers. You should be able to find many topic
ideas here, but please make sure they are recent and focused.
Copyright © 2012, 2014, 2015 Jerod
Weinman.
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.