From directions to demos: Writing in-depth instructions

Originally posted 1/30/12.

Communication Students: Here's your assignment we talked about today. You are to write specific ingredients, steps, and any alternatives or further customizations for each section. Again, remember—you need every single step and incredibly specific ingredients. No slacking—I'll be grading hard!

Ingredients:

• Sliced bread (2 pieces)
• Peanut butter (2 tablespoons)
• Jelly (1.5 tablespoons)
• Butter Knife (for putting PB onto bread)
• Spoon (for putting Jelly onto bread)

Steps:

1. Put peanut butter onto bread piece #1. Using the knife, smear 2 tablespoons of peanut butter onto one side of the bread. It's best to make sure that it's spread evenly across one side. When you are done, put that piece of bread aside.
2. Put jelly onto bread piece #2. Take a spoon full of jelly (approximately 1 to 1.5 tablespoons) and smear it onto one side of the bread. Again, make sure the jelly is spread evenly.
3. Put 'em together. Pick  up the peanut butter piece and put it, PB-side down, on top of the jelly piece (jelly-side up). At this point, I'd recommend you cut the sandwich in half to make it easier to eat.
4. Enjoy. Goes great with a tall, cold glass of milk.

Alternatives:

• Creamy or crunchy? Either type of peanut butter will work, and either type are delicious.
• Don't like jelly? Use honey or marshmallow fluff instead. 
• Toasting the bread is awesome because the warm bread will melt the peanut butter, but the jelly will stay pretty cool.
• Awesome people cut the bread diagonally; lame-os cut the sandwich in half from a square to two rectangles.
• Secret Webb Family Recipe: use three pieces of bread to make a double sandwich. (1) Smother two pieces of bread with jelly. (2) Fry the third piece of in a little bit of butter until it's really hot. (3) Cover both sides of the hot bread with peanut butter. (4) Arrange the sandwich as:
  
  • cold/regular bread
  • jelly
  • peanut butter (which is starting to melt)
  • hot, gooey bread
  • peanut butter (which is starting to melt)
  • jelly
  • cold/regular bread

Ok, so that's what I'm expecting. Seems a lot more in-depth than just "TEACH-AH, JUST PUT IT TOGETHA!" Now YOU make a blog post, just like I did, with all the information for your speech.

Why you stink at arguing: studying rhetorical fallacies to improve your persuasion skills

Originally posted 11/21/11.

Do you regularly get pwnd by your teacher or friends because you lack the basic persuasion and/or debate skills necessary for your success? In class today, I went over the following presentation:

Logical Fallacies on Prezi

As I said at the end of the presentation, you have one assignment: Go to  and find 3 videos that exemplify one fallacy from each of each of the categories of rhetorical fallacies

• Emotional fallacies [pathos]
• Ethical fallacies [ethos]
• Logical fallacies [logos]

Embed (not link to) each example into a blog post with 1¶ (each) explaining why it is an example of that fallacy.

Ok, so there's that! Good luck!

Yes, I'll write you a recommendation... but first...

Originally posted 10/25/11.

One of my typical students and me.

Reasons I love the fall:

• American football
• Cooler weather in Taiwan
• Studying Shakespeare in British Lit
• Beginning literary interpretation in English II
• Just generally torturing students in Communication
• Writing College Recommendation Letters for students

The last one is true: I actually enjoy writing recommendation letters.  Many of  You all work very hard throughout the school year, and I like being able to brag to colleges and universities how amazing you are. Of course, if you are a member of the minority of students who don't work hard throughout the school year, I can't lie and tell them that you are amazing students, so I hope that you're taking advantage of each school day to build up a reputation that I can pass on to your future teachers and administrators.

Around this time of the year, I do get pretty big piles of requests for recommendations, and while I do enjoy writing them, I've come to realize that writing them is a huge job for me, but a non-existent job for you. Further, a lot of the times, I'll have students to give me requests to complete a recommendation for them "BY TOMORROW, TEACH-AH?", and I always have to responde with a polite, resounding "NO WAY." If I'm going to be helping you out, I think it's only fair that you help me out, know what I mean?

So, here is my new policy for recommendation letters:

I will write you a 3-5¶ recommendation of your scholastic merit to be in the college or university of your choosing, provided you:

• Have already had me as a teacher for one semester before you request the letter.
• Allow me at least two (2) four (4) full weeks to write your letter.
• Write me a minimum 5¶ essay expressing at least 3 talents, skills, and characteristics you would like me to pass on to your school.*

Got it? No exceptions to this, please! So if you know you need a letter by, say, the middle of November, now is the time to start bragging on yourself in your essay so I'll have time to get your letter done. Good luck!

*I should receive this before my four-week writing period begins.

How to build a speech in 6 easy steps

Originally posted 1/18/12.

Today in class, we went over the 6 steps to building a speech, but we didn't have a chance to go over the last 2 slides. Here's the slideshow, if you want to check it out:



Also, if you want to download this as a PDF for your iPad, this link will make it happen.

Setting up your TAPA email account

Originally posted 8/3/11.

SO, full disclosure: I actually made this blogpost last year, before we figured out the settings were wrong. I just got it corrected, moments ago, so if you've had problems using it, try the new directions (  highlighted in yellow  ).

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Part of the new technology program at Taipei Adventist Preparatory Academy includes TAPA email, calendar, documents, and Blogger access, provided by Google through its Apps program. Every student will have an account to which much school communication will be delivered. Setting up your account is very easy to do:

1. Log into your TAPA Google Apps account (via a computer). Log into your TAPA email at mail.google.com. Your account name is the  last 4 digits of your ID, like 0000@tapa.tp.edu.tw , and your password is the last 4 digits your Student ID, followed by the "@" sign, followed by your family name (all lower case). So, for example, Stew Dent (ID #123456) would be 3456@tapa.tp.edu.tw, and his password would be 3456@dent.
2. Change your password to something you will remember. You will always log into your Google Apps account with your full email address as the username (e.g. 3456@tapa.tp.edu.tw). Your password will be whatever you change it to, so please remember it.
3. Add your Google Apps account into your iPad. Under Settings on your iPad, click on the Mail, Contacts, Calendar tab on the left side. Click Add Account, then GMail, fill in the following settings, and click next:
   
4. TAPA Mail should now be configured to your device. Additionally, your TAPA calendar is also now configured, so any event you add onto your iPad will be automatically be synced to the internet (and vice versa).

Setting up your blog

Originally posted 8/3/11.

The infamous Trapper Keeper...
where paper went to die.

When I was growing up, the fun part of beginning the school year was the back-to-school shopping day. My mom would take me to Wal-Mart, and we'd go up and down the aisles, buying me pens and Trapper Keepers (do you know what these are?) and folders and all the other stuff I needed to be a successful student. Even though we were just shopping, it was the amazing time of newness, and, I think in my head, it symbolized new opportunities and experiences I was going to get.

For TAPA students, back-to-school shopping my have lost its zeal with iPads being the new tool du jour, but we still need to get some new tools to make this semester more productive. For students in my classes, instead of simply turning in assignments to me (which I will inevitably not grade for a while, and once I do grade, will be buried in a file folder until I eventually realize that I need to turn them back to you), each class member is responsible for a blog which they will post to multiple times a week. Being that this is your blog, and not just a place to put Webb's assignments, I'd hope and expect that you'll do writing above and beyond the requirements for class—make this school project more than just a school project! Here's how to do it:

1. Go to Blogger.com and sign in with your TAPA account. The username should be your TAPA email address (e.g. stew-dent@tapa.tp.edu.tw) and your password should be whatever you changed it to earlier.
2. Complete the blog registration, using your TAPA email address. Also, accept the terms of service.
   
3. From here, click on the top right of the middle section of the page, where it says Create a Blog.
   
   
4. Complete the blog creation registration. Also, select a theme for your blog (not pictured; you can later change the theme to further personalize to your liking.)
   
   
5. On completion, Blogger will ask you to start blogging. Click to follow and create an initial blog post. You may either save it as a draft (not published), or you may publish the post to the entire world!
   
6. From here, continue on to the two options of how to easily publish from your iPad: through a secret email address or through Blogsy.

Required Apps for Webb classes

Originally posted 8/4/11.

For our second year, Taipei Adventist Preparatory Academy is going "full-iPad"—thin, electronic tablets instead of heavy paper books. Being that now students will have computing power at their fingertips, they won't simply be expected to use their iPads as textbooks—they'll also be expected to use them for enhancing their learning other ways, as well. There is a set list of apps that are required school-wide, but there's also a special list of (mostly) free apps that will be expected to be used in Mr. Webb's classes:

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GoodReader The "bread-and-butter" app of TAPA, this will be the program that you use the most. You'll use GoodReader to access your textbooks (scanned in as PDFs), but it's more than just a viewing app. You can write notes, highlight text, draw shapes, search text (and notes, and highlights, and anything shape you put in), and, strangely enough, even watch videos that won't play natively on the built-in Movies app.

QuickOffice Pro HD Basically, this is Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but designed specifically for the iPad. The PowerPoint feature is especially pretty cool, as it allows you to create and display your presentation easily, through the use of the iPad-to-VGA (Projector) adapter AirServer, onto the Mac Minis in every classroom. This has Dropbox and Google Docs integration, too, so sign in to get the most out of it.

Evernote Where do you start? Note-taking abilities? Check; does it better than Notepad, and includes rich text and the ability to add in pictures. Recording audio? Hit the little  icon and easily record your teacher's talk. Remembering what the whiteboard said? Take a photo of the board and put it in, and, later, you can search the picture for text. Add in tagging (the best feature you're not using), and, most importantly, everything backed up to the internet, and you've got a killer app you should be using every period.

Blogsy (Soon...) Most students know about my ginormous crush on Blogsy. I only love it because 1) it's everything I've ever wanted for a mobile blogging app, and 2) it's awesome developer personally has listened to me about a few new features. With all the blogging you're going to be doing in my classes, you'd be silly to not purchase this as soon as possible. ***UPDATE*** Now required! And I'll even buy it for you!

Dropbox I've written the long version before, but, in short, Dropbox is a virtual, internet-based flash drive that updates documents instantly anywhere you have it installed. Install it onto your home computer and your iPad, and log into each account; then, write an essay on your home computer, and it'll show up on your iPad. Edit on the iPad, and it's fixed at home. Best of all, it'll protect you from losing everything if your break your iPad. Required for success.

Scan There's a hundred QR readers on iTunes, and you technically can get any one you want, but Scan is my personal favorite. It's as simple of a program as you can get: just point the camera at any QR code and boom—Information instantly. At the very least, pick up this free app.

Easy QR "BUT MISTAH WEBBAH, WHY WE NEEDAH TWO QR APPSAH?" First off, speak better English. Secondly, occasionally, one of the QR readers won't work as well as the other, so it's smart to have 2. But, most importantly, Easy QR allows you to easily make your own QR codes to distribute any number of ways. Smart to have.

Minu Timer For the most part, the only app that we'll use for Communications class will be the YouTube app, which you will use for uploading your practice speeches. However, if there's another I'd really love to have every student to have, it would be this timer app. Very simple and elegant, Minu Timer is my preferred choice, and what I'll most likely use in timing your speeches during class.

iBooks Soon, in my classes, I'll be releasing a textbook that will contain nearly all of the reading material we'll be using in all my classes throughout the year. Until iTunes approves it, we'll be on standby, but it's not a stupid idea to download this to be ready for when I amaze you.

Stanza While GoodReader is an awesome PDF reader, it lacks a pretty important function: reading other types of files, such as ePub (for eBooks) and CBZs/CBRs (for digital comic books). Whatever GoodReader cannot read, Stanza can and will. Its PDF reader isn't amazing, but the other features it can do will more than make up for it. iBooks will also work, but Stanza is infinitely better.

Shakespeare (Free) An absolute necessity for anyone planning on taking first semester of British Literature, we will read at least 3 plays off this app. The free version is all that's necessary, although the paid app does have a built-in glossary for those tough-to-understand Shakespearean words.

Free Books It's pretty amazing to me that this app designer has been able to get over 23,000 books into his app, all legally, and all for free, but it's true. For my classes, often times, if we're able to get the book for free, I'll just ask you to download them from this app rather than purchase you the book yourself. It'll save you time and money.

Dropbox—Because flash drives are soooo 2007.

Originally posted 8/13/11.

When I first got to TAPA, I was pretty surprised to find out that I wouldn't be able to print of my Macbook. Apparently, with the way the system was set up, only Windows computers plugged in with PaperCut are configured to print, so if I made a worksheet at home on my laptop and I wanted to print it off for class, I pretty much had 2 options:

1. Save the file to the flash drive, unmount the drive, unplug it from my Mac and plug it into my office PC, open up the flash drive, open up the file, and print it out.
2. Email the file to myself from my Mac and open it with my email on my office PC.

This, in a word, was annoying. I wanted to have some type of way of taking a document and working on it on one computer, and then standing up and walking to another computer and finishing that document.

Enter Dropbox.

What I did was install Dropbox to my Mac laptop, my old Windows computer at home, and my office PC at TAPA. When I come home at night and start creating a worksheet on my Mac computer, I save it to my Dropbox folder. As soon as I hit save, it will create the same exact file that I made on my Mac as I did on my home Windows computer and my TAPA office computer. Any change I make to that Mac file will immediately be mirrored on each other computer, almost instantly. 

It gets better. I come to school the next day and turn on my office computer. The file that I made last night on my Mac is already sitting there in the exact place I put it on my Mac, but now, it's on my office computer. And it looks exactly the same as I made it the night before. But wait... I made a mistake. I fix the file on the office computer, and as soon as I hit save, it will immediately update the file on my home Windows computer and my personal Macbook.

Wait, what if I'm not near my own desk but I do have internet access? I can actually still go to Dropbox.com (perhaps on my wife's office computer), log in, and access each of those files I've worked on and updated via the website. At any time. From any computer.

Pretty cool, right? But it'd be better if there was some way of adding that to the iPads, right? Gotcha. In the QuickOffice Pro HD app that all the TAPA staff and students have, there is an option to link your Dropbox account to that program. Now, if I create or edit a document on Dropbox on my iPad, it will immediately reflect those changes on my Mac laptop, my old Windows computer at home, Dropbox.com, and my office PC at TAPA. 

I could go on and on about this and tell you about how I've also tied in my iPod touch and my Android cell phone iPhone to this process, or about how I have shared folder with Lisa where, when she edits a document on her own Dropbox account, I get those changes instantly, too, but I'll stop there. The point is this: if you're working off of more than 1 computing device, this is a pretty required program that will make your life infinitely easier. Go check it out, please!

Vote for me, or DIE: Fallacies + Persuasion speeches

Originally posted 11/21/11.

A few days ago, I started the following presentation:



Your first assignment was the 3  videos—one for each category of rhetorical fallacy we studied.

Shoutout to Janelle for a great/terrible example
of a slippery slope!

The second assignment is to write a 5-7¶ "campaign speech" (following the typical outline). You are running for SA president against a speech class classmate using as many rhetorical fallacies as possible. You are writing this in a paragraph style (as opposed to an outline) because, as you are using rhetorical fallacies, you will  highlight and label  what fallacies they are.

By next Monday, you should have the 5-7¶s uploaded to your blog. During class, you will present your speech to the rest of the class. I will give extra points to

1. whomever I feel is the most convincing, and
2. who correctly uses and identifies the most rhetorical fallacies

This should be the worst speech you do all semester, so get out all your terrible-ness!

Have you practiced your speech? Prove it on YouTube.

***UPDATE***: If you've already uploaded a speech practice video, you need to make sure that the video is marked as UNLISTED instead of PRIVATE. It makes is significantly easier for me to watch it, grade it, and give you points for it!

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Originally posted 9/3/11.

As I've said a number of times in class, the first speech one does for Communication class isn't very good at all. The speaker will be nervous, will stutter and sweat, and will, most likely, have a pretty rough outline that leads to a pretty poor first speech. Don't expect to get a good grade on this one—as you do more speeches in this class, you'll become more comfortable with being up front.

However, in an effort to get you sufficiently practiced for your first real speech (on Wednesday, September 15th), I'll be requiring that you record your speech 3 different times and will require that you post it to so I can evaluate your practicing. Here's how.

1. Record the speech. Use the Camera app to record yourself giving the speech. You will need to make sure that you have the camera facing yourself. You may watch the screen or the camera while you're speaking, so long as you're not reading off of your outline.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Uploading. Once you have completed the video, click on the Share () button at the top of the screen. There will be an option to Send to YouTube. Click on that. If you are asked to sign in, I would strongly suggest you log into with your TAPA email account (e.g. 0000@tapa.tp.edu.tw) and your email password.
   
   
   
   
   A screen will pop up with information to fill out. Name the speech some form of Informative Speech #1, and add which practice run this video is. You'll probably need to fill in some type of description, as well. Make sure the video is  HD  (better quality than Standard Definition), make "Communication" as a Tag, and make the Category "Education". Finally, most importantly, make sure that your video is not publishing as  Public , but as  Unlisted . It really SHOULD NOT be listed as  Private .
   
   
   
   
   When you are done, you can hit  Publish . Your video will start to upload.
   
   
3. Share it... with me. Once the video is uploaded, you will be given an opportunity to either View on YouTube or Tell a Friend.
   
   
   
   
   I suggest that you Tell a Friend (me). Since you've made it Unlisted, no one can search for your video or even look under your Channel, so don't worry—your secret practice is safe with me. When you hit Tell a Friend, it will take you to your email and let you email the video to me. Send it to my TAPA email.
   
   The other option is to View on YouTube. If you click this, it will take you to the video, which you can watch online.
   
   
   
   
   When you get there, you will see another Share () button near the top. Clicking on that will give you the option to send me the link.

Now, you will do this whole process 3 times. I strongly suggest that you try to not use your outline at all (unless it's absolutely necessary). Each time, try to use the outline less and the notecard more. By the time Wednesday comes around, you should have practiced enough that you will pass fail by less.