The Great Debate

This is it: our final project for the semester. Your goal is to write and deliver a short speech of about 10-15 minutes to defend, challenge, or otherwise argue any aspect of technology and society that has spoken to you this semester.

Objectives:

Our goals for this project are to:

Based on everything discussed this semester, develop a short speech (10-15 minutes) either defending or challenging any aspect of technology and society.
After giving your speech, answer questions and engage in debate with your colleagues.

How to Complete - Your Task

Find a topic. The choice is truly yours. What speaks to you with regard to your major? Your personal interests and hobbies? How does technology make an impact in your life, and is it for better or for worse? Ideally, choose a topic with multiple sides so that some good debate can be had. Some ideas worthy of investigation might include: cloning, artificial intelligence, distance learning, the impact of on-demand access on the movie and publishing industries, radiation exposure due to screens, social media's influence on interpersonal communication, cryptocurrency... there's lots to choose from!
Write the speech. Develop a speech using PowerPoint or another medium of your choice. You should plan to use some kind of visual aid, and that can include short video clips that may help you deliver your message (but your whole presentation shouldn't just be someone else's video). Make sure your particular message and argument is clear, and consider the other side and what others have said on the opposing side of your argument.
Deliver and debate. On our final days of class, each student will have a chance to deliver their speech and engage in debate with the rest of the group. If you are presenting, be ready to defend your statements with supporting evidence. When you're in the audience, ask good questions and consider having your device with you so that you can look up points to offer as counter-evidence.

Turning it in

Turn in your presentation media and anything else you developed for your speech in the Module 5 assignment in BlackBoard.

How you're graded

	Unacceptable	Beginning	Developing	Proficient
Knowledge of the Issue and Different Points of View 15 points	Did not present	Student was not able to clearly explain what the issue was about & did not present different points of view	Student missed some important aspects/arguments of the issue in presenting it	Student demonstrated knowledge of what he/she presented and was able to present different aspects/points of view related to the selected issue
Understanding of Argument 20 points	Did not present	The team did not show an adequate understanding of the topic and did not present a convincing argument.	The student seemed to understand the main points of the topic and presented those with ease.	The student clearly understood the topic in-depth and presented their information forcefully and convincingly.
Organization and Flow 15 points	Not completed	Unorganized presentation that does not appear to have strong connections between thoughts	Organized presentation where most transitions and connections are clear, but either organization is somewhat lacking or the connections are somewhat limited	Strongly organized presentation with clear and logical connections that create a sense of being tightly woven together
Use of Evidence 20 points	Did not present	Every point was not supported, and sources were not cited appropriately.	Every major point was supported with facts, statistics and/or examples, but the relevance of some was questionable. Not all sources were cited appropriately.	Every major point was well supported with several relevant facts, statistics and/or examples. All sources were adequately cited in some way (APA, MLA, etc).
Visuals 15 points	Did not present	No visuals used	Student used a visual tool but was not able to get audience’s attention throughout the presentation	Student used visuals to get audience’s attention throughout the presentation
Participation 15 points	Not present	Student did not participate in ensuing debate after others' speeches. Student did not engage classmates during his/her own speech.	Student participated somewhat in ensuing debate after others' speeches. Student engaged others somewhat during his/her own speech.	Student participated enthusiastically in ensuing debate after others' speeches. Student engaged others during his/her own speech.

Resources