post 1: Your favourite assignment

Prompt:

Describe the assignment or project you enjoyed the most in high school.  What did you like about it?  Did it help you develop any of our 21st century skills?  If yes, how did it develop these skills.  If no, how could it be adapted to include 21st century skills?

MY  THOUGHTS:

The assignment I enjoyed most in high school was the "First Lecture" we were assigned in Grade 10 Commtech. The idea behind the assignment was that all students had something they wanted to say to their classmates, and all a teacher needed to do was give them the time to present it. The assignment was created as an homage to the famous "Last Lecture" given by Professor Randy Pausch before he left his teaching job at Carnegie Mellon University. His lecture can be found below.

One thing that made the "First Lecture" such a great assignment was the fact that there were very few boundaries. Students could pick whatever topics they wished to talk about, as long as they were prepared to talk about it for 12-15 minutes. The other great thing about this assignment was that it taught us one of the most necessary of all the 21st century skills: Communication.

One of the first rules of giving a presentation...broken.

To me, communication means more than being able to carry on a conversation. Communication includes such skills as the ability to give an effective and engaging presentation. In fact, one of the most useful tips our teacher gave us that year consisted of how to make an effective presentation, and how to make your Powerpoint help your presentation, not be your presentation. These rules, such as "never show a slide with more than 25 words" will stick with me wherever I go in life.

It's often difficult to explain to a teacher (beaming with pride about their new Powerpoint), that you can't read the green text on the green background.

Presentation skills and other types of communication have become more and more important in the 21st century. I'm often amazed how many people are able to express their ideas eloquently and coherently in person, but then resemble kindergarteners when they try to use technology to assist with their presentation. In this day and age, I consider effective "Powerpointing" skills to be less of a  proficiency, and more about basic literacy.