Assignment: Informative Speech Visual Aid
For this assignment, you are creating a visual that could accompany your informative speech.
Note that you do not have to use this visual when you deliver the speech at the end of the next module.
This exercise will also help you start to organize your informative speech. Below are some possible options and introductions to the tools that you might consider for making a digital visual presentation.
You are likely familiar with Google Slides or PowerPoint, but they aren’t always the best way to present evidence that supports your speech visually.
This page showcases other digital tool examples that can be useful and I highly encourage you to experiment with them. Many of these tools offer a different kind of interactivity and can be especially useful if you want to embed them into a website, for example, along with your video speech.
Instructions
- Your visual should use only one of the tools below. (If you have another tool in mind for creating a visual aid, let me know.)
- Your visual should help you organize the informative points that will structure your informative speech next week.
- Your visual should include at least three supporting pieces of evidence for your speech. (This might mean three slides, three dates on a timeline, three Juxtapose images, etc.)
- If using Google Slides or PowerPoint, you must challenge yourself to learn to do something new while creating your slides.
- Don’t think of slides as the easy way out. If you are going to create slides, they should be high quality.
- Take into account what you’ve learned about accessibility, particularly as it relates to color, images, and text.
- For many of these tools, you must use the image captions to write detailed image descriptions.
- You must give citations for your images (Examples are in the tools below.)
- Please consider the copyright status of the visual images that you choose.
- More information on copyright and attribution and on finding openly licensed images.
- Please consider the copyright status of the visual images that you choose.
- Submit your visual as a link through Blackboard.
- Please be sure to have made your visual viewable by anyone with the link.
- If you can’t submit your visual easily through Blackboard, you can email me it directly or embed it into a post on the site.
Go Beyond Slides
The first three tools come from KnightLab Studio, based at Northwestern University. KnightLab has created several open-source projects used across the web, including by journalists and educators, to create more interactive storytelling content. Open-source means that the code for these tools is
- free to use, study, change, and distribute without limits
- available to anyone and for any purpose—the software and its source code
- meant to create shareable cultural goods and encourage public knowledge and engagement
Each of these tools is entirely free to use.
Learn about TimelineJS, Juxtapose, and StorymapJS. For each tool, you will see an example and then outside links to tutorials if you think that they might work for your content and you want to try them out.
All three tools will result in a web URL that you can share with me as the assignment for this module through the above form. Later you will be able to embed your visual with your informative speech post in the next module if needed.
TimelineJS
TimelineJS enables you to build visually rich interactive timelines by using a Google Spreadsheet to organize your visuals.
Example tracing the historical speeches from this course so far
- Visit more Timeline Examples
- Step by Step click-through tutorial created for a CUNY Open-Source tool seminar (The instructions about content aren’t relevant, but the explanations for each step in creating a Timeline are good.)
- A video tutorial on YouTube
If you make a Timeline, please follow the steps on the site and give me the link that is produced by Knightlab (not your Google sheet).
Juxtapose
According to KnightLab, “Juxtapose helps storytellers compare two pieces of similar media, including photos, and GIFs. It’s ideal for highlighting then/now stories that explain slow changes over time (growth of a city skyline, regrowth of a forest, etc.) or before/after stories that show the impact of single dramatic events (natural disasters, protests, wars, etc.).”
Juxtapose is very simple to use. However, each comparison image must be done separately. (To complete the assignment for this module you will need to submit a few different ones.)
Example Juxtapose of two different historical Empires
StoryMapJS
StoryMapJS arranges information geographically, for example, highlighting the locations of a series of events. StoryMap requires you to use a Google account.
Example based on some locations mentioned in introductory speeches
- More Storymap Examples
- Step by Step click-through tutorial created for a CUNY Open-Source tool seminar (The instructions about content aren’t relevant, but the explanations for each step in creating a Storymap are good.)
- Video Tutorial on YouTube
Slides
Slides are still sometimes the best and easiest solution for visuals for an informative speech. It’s also potentially possible to include some of the above visuals as part of a bigger slide presentation.
If you choose to use Google Slides or PowerPoint, take this assignment as an opportunity to learn some more advanced skills in those mediums.
If you use Google Slides, be sure your slides are visible to anyone with the link when you submit them.
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