CST 300 Module 7

On the final research video this week we seem to be collaborating well. The workload was divided up so that we each took a 2 minute slice from the total video and worked on adding that to the presentation. Using google docs to collaborate on our slides and scripts, we were able to easily add our parts and work together to edit and improve our parts of the projects. I personally worked on genetic engineering, and had a good time learning about the new methods for transformations.

In Anthony Goldbloom’s presentation, “The jobs we'll lose to machines -- and the ones we won’t”, he discussed how jobs will change in the near future with the advancement of machine automation. It was interesting how he started with the story of his young niece Yahli, pointing to how the job market will be severely different when she is in college from when even he was in college a generation before. He uses this thread as a way to delve into his discussion of how virtually any task that requires repeatable and measurable actions can be given to a computer that can be trained to perform these tasks. In the end he points to how Yahli will probably need to study areas which require novel task solving capabilities, something that machines are not as good as humans at, and suggests that these will be the areas where jobs will still remain even with automation.

Trevor Timm highlighted an interesting question in his presentation entitled “How free is our freedom of the press?” He begins his discussion by introducing us to a writer who discussed the unauthorized government surveillance. Apparently, in search of the whistleblower in the government who leaked this information, they looked though the writer’s emails, phone calls, bank records, and other information and eventually placed the blame on one Jeffrey Sterling. He points to tools that are now being created in order to bypass the ability of the government to find whistleblowers through their communications with the press. It was very interesting to see how he pointed to the importance of press freedom towards the end, and highlighted the need for these services by showcasing an instance where whistleblowers were severely prosecuted.

I particularly enjoyed the “Life After Death” presentation by Don McMillan. His use of humor to illustrate the “don’ts” of powerpoint presentation made the lessons memorable and fun to watch. The general point I gathered from his presentation is to avoid overuse of add-ons in powerpoint presentation. In other words we ought to be moderate in our use of animations, powerpoints and graphs, using them only when we need them and not constantly. The Toastmasters website had some interesting tips for presentations as well. They suggested that you should be prepared, confident, and conversational when delivering a speech. It was also important to maintain eye contact with members of the audience while avoiding insincere gestures.