ePortfolio

This is the link to the final assignment (If the link does not work just copy paste it into the search box)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7vwYeLa1tvVSDR0ajNQTnhXMnM&usp=sharing

Presentations Review

Should College Athletes Be Paid- Andrew, Francisco, Ivan

            This group made so many good points throughout the presentation. The first strength that I noticed was that they had really good information and reliable resources. Having reliable resources is crucial and to have resources that even the audience is familiar with is even better. Having information from the NCAA was a great source. Another positive thing that this group did is they looked at both sides of athletes getting paid. Having the video was a good idea because it helped break up the information and show what it is like from an athlete’s point of view. As of weaknesses the only thing that I noticed was some of the information was repeated a lot. Some of the information needed to be repeated but some was just over done.

            Overall the presentation was strong. The information that they presented was reliable and effective. A really big part of this presentations success was that they were able to effectively get their message across.

Violent Video Games- Pavel, Forrest

            This was by far the most interesting presentation. I thought that the strengths of this presentation were that they looked into school shootings and what they were thinking psychology. They were able to make good points about bullying and how that can be a result of shootings as well as violent video games. Although there were some strengths, I feel like this presentation had some weaknesses as well. A lot of the information was just being repeated and it sounded like I heard a lot of the same stuff all over all again. Their body language was off too. Walking away from the screen is not a good idea.

            Overall, this presentation was okay. I learned a little bit about violence in video games. They made some good points and opened my eyes to some stuff. Although there were some weaknesses they were not enough to cause the presentation to lose any of its effectiveness. 

Presentation Reviews

The Truth Behind Diets- Irania, Jessica, and Randee

            I thought that this group did a very good job at drawing the audience in right

away and gaining their attention. The first thing that they did that was very effective was they showed an example of an actress that had problems with dieting. This really set the standard and gave us as audience somebody we could think about when they were talking about ways diets can be bad. Something else that they did that seemed to have a big impact is the way that they looked at how dieting can be used for both fat and skinny people and how each one works. They did not read off the screen and were always looking forward but they never made eye contact with the sides of the room. Keeping eye contact with the whole room is important.

            Overall, I thought this presentation was very well executed. They gave information that was not already known or common sense and they made sure not to repeat anything that they already said which can be hard to do in a twelve-minute presentation. I thought that they took a very interesting subject and made it even better.

Space Exploration- Blake, Daniel, and Doyle

            During this presentation my mind was just constantly getting blown. The information that they were throwing at the audience was astonishing. This is one of  the things that made this presentation so strong. The group was able to find information and facts about space that were all relevant to their subject. Another strong point to their presentation was that they had a good visual. This visual helped keep the audience in pace with what they were saying. Some visuals are just there to have one but this one was effective in the way that stated all the main points and showed us the companies that were leading space exploration today. One of the negatives I saw about this presentation was that Daniel was doing most of the talking and that is a huge negative to only have one person doing all the talking. Whenever the other members started talking, they did not sound as confident as Daniel and that is bad. Confidence when speaking is huge because if you do not have confidence in yourself, how is the audience going to have confidence in you?

            Overall, this presentation was decent I thought. It could have been better in the way that they all could have done the same amount of talking. However, the information that they showed and displayed was very good and strengthened their presentation greatly. It was a great subject to pick and was definitely interesting to say the least.

Hypocrisy is a Whore- Saul, Bryan, and Carlo

            I thought this was one of the most interesting presentations to have gone yet. I felt like the information was all over the place and there was no clear-cut path as to what they were trying to say. A weakness that I  saw was when they brought up the South Park refrence. This is a cartoon show and not a reliable resource. I understand their point but I do not agree with the way that they were relaying the message. Another weakness I saw was that they were not taking the presentation as serious as other groups. The laughing and joking around was distracting and causing me to loose focus. A strength that I saw was that they seemed to have the whole audience engaged in the presentation and humor was what did that. That is a huge thing to have an audience listening and paying attention to what you are saying.

            Overall, this presentation was okay. They were able to draw the audience in with humor and keep them engaged. I think if they could have just drawn the audience in with humor and then make it more serious once they had their full attention, it would have been much more effective. This was still a very interesting and stunning topic to give a presentation on though.

Presenation Reviews

Altered Sate of Legality

            There were many strengths to this presentation on the legalization of marijuana. The first strength that this group had was that they knew the information that they were talking about. This may not sound like a huge deal but when a group knows what they are talking about it makes them sound much more persuasive. They had lots of information and lots of facts, which helped me, grasp and understand what they were talking about. While speaking the showed lots of enthusiasm and interest in the subject, which made it easier to follow to along. Although this group had much strength I was able to find a couple of weaknesses in their presentation. The first was that some of the slides had way to many words on them. This makes it hard to follow along and makes the overall presentation feel a lot more boring. The second weakness was that there were some slides where a picture could have been placed but was not.

            Overall the presentation was given almost perfectly. I felt like I learned a lot about the subject and know I have more knowledge on the subject. A topic that seems like it could be so broad was condensed to help make it make sense and that is why this presentation was so successful.

Show Me the Money- Ben, JB, Thor, Dana

            This presentation was one that I was very focused on. It had an interesting topic talking about why NCAA athletes should be paid. The only weakness that I found in this group was that there were some times when they were reading of the screen but to a certain point that is acceptable. The strengths in this presentation range from the title to the first hand experiences that Ben and JB shared. The title was very effective in the way that it really showed how college athletes feel about not getting paid. All the group members gave good explanations as to what they were talking about. One of the strongest points that this group made that stuck with me the most was when they showed the political cartoon. This gave a great image as what the athletes do for the NCAA and how much work they put in for so little personal benefit. The use of first hand experiences was huge for this group. They helped get the point across and helped show what it is like to be an athlete.

            Overall this group was effective in getting their point across and really painted a good picture for the audience to see. The used the facts they gathered effectively and got their point across. Having two athletes in the group was definitely a huge benefit for this group.

Reflection Paper

Each member in our group was responsible for finding their own information and making sure it was of good quality. My specific responsibility was to find information on how fast food affects the body and what it does to the body. I was also responsible for constructing the interview script and interviewing each person. When we were all done putting the slides together, I was the one who added all the pictures to the slides and made the slides more appealing by adding color to them and not just being black and white.

            Some of the struggles that our group experienced was finding specific articles that were related to our specific subject. Fast food was such a broad topic that it was hard to find sources that we could use or sources that were not repeating sources that we already had. One of the successes that our group had was that we all worked on the project together. This may not sound like a big deal but working on the project with everyone present made it easier to complete. It was easier because when we wanted to change or add something we did not have to wait to ask someone and whenever we had a question there were always two people there who could answer it or make it better. Another success that we had was everybody held up their part and they did what they said they would do. We never had to wait for someone to get their part done and everyone was responsible enough to finish their task.

            As a group I feel as if we deserve an A or a B+ at the least. We have fulfilled all of the requirements. We could have made our topic just how fast food is bad, but instead we looked at how fast food restaurants target their customers and how fast food has a negative effect on the body. We really did put a lot of time into this project and it was not easy to do but I feel like we succeeded and accomplished the overall task and more. As for the grade I deserve, I believe that I should receive an A. I am not only saying this because I want the highest grade possible but I am saying this because I did fulfill all the requirements and did them epically well. This was a project that I actually enjoyed doing and I learned a lot about research that I did not know before.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1baqOYlWeFX03wvjObKVHBO5LXo1ebPIrWTX7IETvgLo/edit#slide=id.p  

Annoted Bibliography

Story, Mary. "Fast food restaurant Use among Adolescenst: Associantions with Nutrient Intake, Food Choices and Behavioral and Psychosocial Variables." International Journal of Obesity (2001): 1824-1831. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. <http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=adf36d4c-1b26-422e-babb-1a5f5f1abe4b%40sessionmgr4002&vid=2&hid=4104>

            The author of this article has a written many others like it. She has a long list of articles talking about obesity and the way it effects the body and the children in today’s world. The content in this article is mainly focused on the results that were collected from the studies that were collected from schools and talks about how the data is portrayed. The main argument of this article is to show how big of a difference is made when children eat healthy food compared to when they do not. Energy and attention are the main points that are highlighted. The intended audience for this article is parents that have children and buy their kids fast food. The research methods were surveys that were taken from thirty-one schools with kids ranging from seventh to twelfth grade. The author found that kids who eat fast food on a regular basis are more likely to become obese and have less energy and concentration because they are not receiving the necessary nutrients. This text is extremely reliable because the results were taken from real kids who were not asked to change their eating habits and the study was conducted by a group of professors from the University of Minnesota. A really important part of this article was the charts that were provided showing the data from the survey. The strengths of the text are the charts and seeing how the surveys were conducted. As of weaknesses in the article there are not any because everything in the article serves a purpose and without it some of the information would not be as complete.

            This article is helpful to my own research because it helps me see what the difference is between eating healthy compared to eating fast food. Seeing that fast food decreases the body’s energy is a huge step forward for my research and the charts help me see where improvements can be made. My reaction to the text was shocking. Seeing how big of a difference eating fast food makes was astonishing and now I realize that there are so many disadvantages to eating fast food that I did not see before.

Bowman, Shanthy. "Effects of Fast-Food Consumption on Energy Intake and Diet Quality Among Children in a National Household Survey." Pediatrics. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.

            The author of this text is a doctor who does research for a website called pediatrics.org. She is a nutritionist and scientist for the USDA and holds a Ph.D. The content of this article is holds many statistics and data. The article looks at results from eating fast food and how it affects the body. The main argument of this article is how the consumption of fast food among children can cause an increase in children obesity. The intended audience is parents with children and parents who feed their kids fast food. The methods used to find this data was to run a survey with kids from the ages of four to nineteen and to ask them to keep their eating habits the same. The conclusions that were found were that kids who ate fast food were that kids who ate fast food had less energy. The reliability of this text is high. Being that the person who wrote it works for the USDA, they would not put inaccurate information in a public pediatric article. The highlight of this article was seeing the numbers in energy between kids who ate fast food and kids who did not. The strengths of this article was seeing the energy difference in numbers but the weakness of it was that the survey was only done for two days and the participants were only reviewed on one of the two days.

            This article helps me with my research because I can now see the real numbers in energy difference. I can look at the difference from a two-day survey compared to a longer survey that I found in a different piece of research. I was surprised to see how the numbers change from healthy eating children and unhealthy eating children. The difference between fiber, energy, and confidence interval were completely different.