SPEAKING 4: USING TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE YOUR SPEECH

1. THE INTERNET

The Internet consists of millions of computers, from those belonging to multinational corporations, world governments, colleges, and universities to those belonging to your friends and family.   The World Wide Web is part of the Internet.  It is a vast universe of information about most topics but you have to be aware that not all of it is accurate or credible.  When researching, it is important to use reliable and trustworthy sources and here we’re going to give you a guideline on how to do it.

IMPORTANT ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT:

• URL Extensions

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater and it is the address of a web page or an Internet site.  The last three letters of the basic URL are called extensions and they give you important information about the type of Internet site they represent.

URL Extension	Types of Organizations	Example Sites
.com or .net	Business or for-profit commercial sites	www.amazon.com
.org	Nonprofit groups	www.unitedway.org
.gov	Government agencies	www.sat.gob
.edu	Educational institutions	www.harvard.edu

 Which sites you think will provide the most reliable information?

• Authorship/Sponsorship

Find out what person(s) or organization is responsible for the information on the website.

• Purpose

Try to determine why the information was written.  Decide if the information seems to be impartial or represent the interests of a particular group or person.

• Content and quality of the Website

To analyze the information provided by the website, you may ask yourself the following questions:

Is there bibliographic documentation?

Does it contain links to other sites?

Is the information current?

Does the site contain spelling or grammatical errors?

Plagiarism

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines plagiarism as: “the act of using another person's idea or a part of their work and pretend that it is your own.”

In order to avoid plagiarism, always paraphrase the information you find and don’t forget to cite the source specifying author’s name (when available), website, date and URL.

Homework 1

Work in teams of four, choose a topic for a speech and enter it in a search engine.  Click at least three different sites that the search engine finds for you and fill in the following chart to evaluate each of them.

Important: You don’t need to get together, you may work online.

Topic:	Site 1	Site 2	Site 3
Website URL
Who is responsible of the information?
Does it provide links to other sites? Which?
Is the information objective? Why or why not?
When was the site last updated?
Did you find any errors on the site? Which kind?

Then, choose the most reliable information you found in the three sites you checked and paraphrase it in your notebook.  Don’t forget to cite.

2. PRESENTATION WEBSITES

It is proved that people learn far more when information is presented through two or more senses.  Tell listeners something and they will remember some of it; tell and show listeners and they will remember most of it!

Audiences enjoy eye-catching, colorful visual aids.  Visual aids enhance a presentation by helping the audience to more easily understand and remember your information.

Nowadays, there are many websites available where you can create a presentation in which you can include: graphs, charts, music, videos and plenty of information. 

Despite the site you use, you should take into account the following when creating a slide:

1.      Content:

1. Text:
• Don’t fill up a slide with too much text
• Simplify text: Create keywords and easy-to-remember phrases
• Round off numbers
2. Art:

·         Use pictures and photographs

·         Don’t overdo it

·         Keep illustrations simple.

2.      Color:

1. Background color:
• The best one is dark because it eliminates bright
2. Title and text color:

·         Choose light colors that contrast

·         Avoid blues, greens or reds for text or titles.

3.      Font:

1. Type:

·         Use the same font on all your slides

2. Size:

·         Headings 36-46 points / Text 24 points 

Tips for your presentation:

a.      Face your audience at all times

b.      Focus all of the attention on YOU occasionally

c.      Back up your presentation.

d.   Be prepared with a backup plan in case you’re unable to use your presentation (Make copies of your slides, print out your presentation)

Homework 2

Presentation

Work with the same team you worked for homework 1 and using the information you researched in the web:

1. Prepare an outline of your speech in your notebook taking into account what you learnt last month.
2. Check this site to choose a presentation platform:

      http://www.boxoftricks.net/2009/05/top-five-online-presentation-tools/

3. Prepare an online presentation based on your outline, taking into account every tip you were given above.
4. Assign each of the members of your team a part of the speech and practice, be sure you use appropriate body language, pace, volume and tone of voice.
5. Present to your group, give and receive feedback

Note: Again, you don’t need to get together, you may work online.

Option: In case you may not work with a presentation site, you may prepare a Power Point presentation.