Jared’s Blog

Group Presentation: Global Music

This presentation was well organised, the first and second speakers especially knew their content well. It was unfortunate, however, that the management of time was not better orchestrated and so the third speaker who had an equal amount to say was not given a fair opportunity to say it in due to extreme time constraints. There was also a bit of alarm when the 2 minute sign was shown and time was wasted here because they were not repaired for it. 5/8

Time was wasted showing some of the videos. One or two would of been suffice. I liked the Swiss presenter’s link to the instrument and it’s actual use as a cow horn. To me this in particular distinguished the cultural explicitness of music in Switzerland. 4/8

Presenters spoke well. Again, the last presenter was a little rushed due to restrictions on time. Still showed videos, perhaps should of not shown these videos as they were unnecessary. Appeared extremely flustered under the stress. 4/6

All members appeared to contribute equally albeit too much. All speakers seemed well informed and interested in the topic and this interest then went across to the audience. I enjoyed their presentation overall. 2/3.

Group Presentation: Gender Equality

This presentation was well organised, with a fair amount of research evident but limited citations (just what was perceived as societal norms). Perhaps my perceptions of Jordan were wrong (I travelled there for a whole day and restricted my visit to tourist sites) however I was under the assumption that it was a much freer country in terms of women’s rights than other surrounding Arab states. The examples and pictures to support their ideas was evident and they seemed to keep within the time limit, almost perfectly. 6/8

Studying homosexual rights was an interesting direction to take, but one that seemed effective and which, when well presented can remain on the right topic. Good use of video. 6/8

Suitable volume and good body manner with clear articulation. Could have been a little more enthusiastic with the information. One of the presenters particularly spoke with interest on homosexual rights, which was good as it perhaps suggested a particular invested interest in the topic. 5/6

All members contributed equally and seemed to be knowledgable within their own particular fields and on what they contributed to the assignment. 2/3.

I did not enjoy this weeks lecture on War. Perhaps it was as a result of my sensitivities, particularly with regards to World War II, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, but I found the lecturer to be hinting at legitimising the acts of Adolf Hitler through the legality of what he did.

Unfortunately because of group presentations we weren’t able to debate in class, which I thought would of been really interesting considering the numerous attitudes people can have to war. Perhaps in the future the topic of war can be placed before or after the group presentation period, particularly given that, unfortunately, it is something that just about links every country on earth! (Had to backspace there as I still have a tendency to call it a nation).

Patrick Deer’s article “The Ends of War and the Limits of War Culture”  commenced with the statement “War is back”. Which made me wonder “Did it ever go away?”. I answered my own question: no. What went away, rather, was the media’s interest in an all too common happening. War has been rife, especially in Africa for several decades though for the most part (and a cynic might argue it’s because of a lack of oil in the region), the Western community is silent. The Genocide and military opperations in Darfur, Sudan come to mind.

Rather than approaching these pressing issues, academics seem fixated on what we see on the media (and attacking the Bush Administration), rather than researching far reaching issues and really educating us all on a war that’s not back, but a war that has always been here.

PS. Sorry if this posting seems all over the place!

References:

Deer, Patrick 2007, ‘The Ends of War and the Limits of War Culture’, Social Text, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 1-11. http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/19191/976001_deerendsofwarthelimitsofwarculture.pdf

Yesterday, with a lead up of stress and panic we presented our presentation. The most panicing thought was whether or not as a group we had completed the task properly and given that this was the first week of presentations we didn’t really have anything with which to go by.

We spent the hour between the lecture and class rehearsing again in an empty classroom. Justina, another classmate came and watched us and provided really great feedback which gave us more time to chop things out and for me to slow down my reading (I speed up when nervous).

Our presentation went well, I had a lot to rush through at the end after being given the 2 minutes warning so again probably should of cut down even more but thankfully had enough time to show my video which I think was a nice way to end. Despite all the difficulties we had in meeting together I think we pulled it off well and worked together as a team effectively.

The assignment taught us more about how far outreaching the dimensions of global terrorism are and how many facets of society are effected by them. In this way I believe that our original team goals were reached. I was also thankful that all the group members pulled their weight and so didn’t have to worry about the whole part of our group assignment table regarding what to do if group members weren’t cooperating.

I enjoyed working with my group, and I enjoyed doing an assignment on something I’m actually interested in.

Today we finalised our presentation and tied together a few loose ends in what was the first actual complete group meeting. Again, I find that’s the problem with group assignments – time limitations: everyone’s so busy and when they have the time it’s usually really late at night or early in the morning depending on everyone’s study patterns and when their brain works best.

It was a full day in the library, with a little break for lunch (of course!).

Our powerpoint was complete, though our word document (which more or less said in black and white what we were to say) was a little too long and contained far too much information, which I guess is always better than not enough information! I found cutting information I thought was interesting and therefore important difficult though Ashleigh wasn’t afraid at all of chopping!

Once everything was complete we practiced it in an empty room but still I felt that it lacked that spark of creativity. I suggested that we dress up in our fields of expertise and ‘role play’ a little, but the others felt it was too complicated and I agree’d with them especially considering the presentation was tomorrow!

Now to do all those other assignments! …

Today I had a rare opportunity to meet up with Ashleigh to work out what our assignment entailed and what direction Ingrid and Ashleigh had taken it. I was impressed with the amount of work they got done in such a limited time, and felt bad at the same time that I couldn’t help out. Luckily the information I had earlier gathered fitted in with the presentation the girls had mapped out.

The trouble was ‘how to make our presentation unique and exciting’ rather than a straight forward ‘lecture and listen’ which the other students would probably quickly get tired of. We decided that rather than listen to our voices the whole time, some short videos (so as to not detract from our speaking time) would be good. Ashleigh found a trailer on an up and coming video of the terrorist group the Barder Meinhoff which was contextually relevant and I had to toss up between a news report in Israel on a terrorist attack and a video of indoctrinated children reciting their hatred to the Jews and Israel. I felt the later had more relevance to school children and the attrocities of terrorism.

We left the legal side to Ingrid as that is what she’s studying.

We spent the rest of the (long) afternoon updating and beautifying our slideshow to give a clean-cut presentation that we felt the students would actually read rather than just stare at. It was another tiring but productive afternoon.

Finding time when we all can meet has been extremely difficult over the holidays with work and other assignment commitments. Unfortunately the rest of the group is meeting up this afternoon to discuss the assignment’s progress and collect information and properly delegate everyone’s contributions but I’ll be at work.

Whatever work they do, they’ll send me via email (I hope!) and I said that any major decisions they had to make they could (try and) run pass me if I was able to answer the phone.

This post marks the first formal report of our group’s assignment progress (short of the previous uploaded form). Over the long week end break I researched terrorism and the impacts on schools compiling a list of incidents and also finding a great book: Innocent Targets: When Terrorism Comes to School. Unfortunately after calling Borders and Dymocks my only option was to purchase the book from Amazon and hopefully get it Airmailed so it would arrive on time. Unfortunately they got my email too late and it had already been shipped. I proceeded on finding other information knowing that even though the book would arrive too late it would be a good read in my other discipline (education).

As a group via email we discussed how our presentation should be. We continue to work on information sharing, passing on links and good books because we all bring to the ‘table’ a different way of seeing things, and can all benefit from the information in a different way.

I’m enjoying the research stage as I find global terrorism to be an interesting area of study.

For the Group Assignment Progress Template please view my blog on UTS Online.

Global Economic Integration through the WTO:

This evening we were given the second debate topic “China’s entry into the WTO has bought no economc benefits to the majority of the Chinese people” on the negative side.

The reading by Guo this week spoke about the political reforms which came about as a result of China joining the WTO. Of particular mention regarding the economic benefit of being a member of the WTO is the reduction of government intervention on both social and economic activity, as China becomes more accountable to the international community.

This idea formed the basis of our argument, but we didn’t have to present though probably would of won anyway!

References:

Guo, Yingjie 2008, ‘Domestic Openness in Post-WTO China: Central and Local Perspectives’, Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 17, no. 55, pp. 339-359. http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/19173/15134_domesticopennessinpost-wtochina.pdf