Some Ideas for the Virtual Elevator Speech

I made a template Presentation for you to download and review.  It can be played in slideshow mode and then plays automatically, with background music.  The slides are meant as instructions on how to make your presentation.   So that covers the layout part.

Content-wise, the big deal is image selection.  Some thinking should go into what sort of image best represents the idea you want to communicate.  I expect that to be the bulk of the work, with there also some effort put into your slide titles to tie into the images and establish connections with your paper. The images should be taken from the Internet, but don't use one which has a copyright notice on it.  Otherwise, everything is fair game, though do note we are a G-Rated class and your content should fit that requirement.

As to the music, it is best for it to be purely instrumental, no vocals.  This way the music complements the content on the slides and doesn't compete with it.  One possible source of such music is to find Karaoke versions of popular songs.  Here popular means for students, not for me.  Remember, other students in the class are your primary audience.  If you find such music on YouTube, there are many converters out there to make an mp3 (audio) file from the video.  I've used this one with good success.

You need to put in timings/transitions for the slides.  This requires a bit of arithmetic like this - if you have 20 slides and you want the presentation to run for 2 minutes then that is 10 slides per minute or 6 seconds per slide.  You don't need to have it completely uniform that way, but it is certainly easier.  Slides with a lot of text (you won't have many of these) should have some more time to allow the viewer to read what is on the slide.

Finally, the music should autoplay.  There are some tools for doing that.

If you need help with this I can certainly provide that, but my hope is that at least one team member will have these skills and this sort of things is something that each of you should learn, if you don't already know how to do it.

Evaluation of Eighteenth Class Session

Here is the form.   The economics itself is getting more subtle now and with that comes added difficulty in understanding the concepts.  It would be good to comment on your sense of understanding of the issues.

Evaluation of Seventeenth Class Session

Here is the form.  The blog posts were more interesting last week.  I wonder if that will impact class discussion. 

Evaluation of Fourteenth Class Session

The form is here.  There will be a few more of these where you can get credit.  Then we'll just do comments which will be optional and not for credit. 

Quiz/Evaluation of Class Session

The first quiz is live in Moodle now.  You can take it any time between now and 11 PM Wednesday.  The results will be available to you once the quiz has closed.

The evaluation form for the class session today is available. 

Evaluation of Twelfth Class Session

The form is here.  I had planned to give out a maximum of 50 bonus points for these evaluations, with 5 points per form you complete.  Please comment on whether you would continue to complete the forms even after you've accumulated the 50 points, or if you'd stop  because there was no incentive to do so.

Evaluation of Eleventh Class Session

Here is the form.  I would be especially interested if you have ever seen matching markets in your other classes.  Also, whether the demo of intern matching program made sense to you.

Evaluation of Tenth Class Session

The comments on the previous evaluations were interesting and useful to me.  So I will continue with the evaluation for this session, even if it is more lecture than discussion. 

Evaluation of Ninth Class Session

We are beginning to get into the real class content.  So if you complete the evaluation form for the session, I'd appreciate comments not just about the session itself but also whether the content is making sense to you or if seems elusive or hard to understand.

Evaluation of Sixth Class Session

Here is the form.  We spent more time going over the presentation materials from Tuesday about transaction costs than we did talking about the content meant for today.  So we will spend some time next Tuesday to get get caught up.

Evaluation of Fifth Class Session

For those who have recently added the class, completing the form (if you've attended the session) gives you some bonus points (5 of them).  You can amass up to 50 points this way.  The course itself has 1,000 points.  To get an A you need 900 points.  So the bonus points can be helpful.

Here is the form.  And below is the calendar entry for today's class session.

M&R Chapter 1, historical examples of different organization structures as ways to innovate on previous structures and changes in the economic environment. Transactions costs from chapter 2. B&D Chapter 1, the four frames.

pptx file
pdf file

Evaluation of Fourth Class Session

Sorry to post this a little late. I've been a bit absent minded today.  Here is the form.  I felt we were a tad to big to be in the horseshoe today.  But I didn't realize that ahead of time.  I wonder whether you now have a preference for one seating arrangement over the other.  If you do, I'd appreciate hearing about that in the comments.

Evaluation of Third Class Session

We will continue with these surveys for this next week and then take a look see about them.  Current enrollment in the class is 32.  If everybody shows up, the class size will pose a challenge to run the class in discussion mode and get lots of participation.  I do want to encourage attendance (that's part of the purpose of these surveys).  And I do believe in having ambitious goals.  But I don't like to have goals that are not attainable, even after substantial effort and creativity is put in.  So we'll make some recalibration about this next week.

In the meantime, here is the form for the third class session. And below is the calendar entry for this class.

An overview of the Nobel Address by Herbert Simon and why actual organizations are unlike how they are modeled in the neoclassical economics (intermediate micro) approach.
pptx file:
pdf file:

Evaluation of Second Class Session

These instructions are very much like the instructions for the first session, since we've not yet had a chance to review the results and possibly critique what is being asked in the evaluation.  We will soon consider whether the criteria in the survey make sense for our class or if they should be tweaked to something more sensible.

The evaluation is more about our process in the class discussion than about the content, but if you want to say something about that, you can do so in the comments.  The form is meant to be easy to fill out.  Note that you receive bonus points for completing the form as long as:
a) you choose the alias that has been assigned to you and sent to you by email, and
b) you checked in at the start of class so there is a record that you were there.

Students who are currently not registered but plan to add the class should not complete this particular evaluation.  There will be ample opportunity to earn bonus points by doing subsequent evaluations on future class sessions.

The deadline for this class session is at 9 AM the day of our next class.  This will give me time to process it and show the results to the class.

Below is the information about the class session that can be found in the calendar entry for it.

Overview of the Gift Exchange model. The University as organization.
pptx file:
pdf file:

Evaluation of First Class Session

The evaluation is more about our process in the class discussion than about the content, but if you want to say something about that, you can do so in the comments.  The form is meant to be easy to fill out.  Note that you receive bonus points for completing the form as long as:
a) you choose the alias that has been assigned to you and sent to you by email, and
b) you checked in at the start of class so there is a record that you were there.

Students who are currently not registered but plan to add the class should not complete this particular evaluation.  There will be ample opportunity to earn bonus points by doing subsequent evaluations on future class sessions.

The deadline for this class session is at 9 AM the day of our next class.  This will give me time to process it and show the results to the class.

Below is the information about the class session that can be found in the calendar entry for it.

The class as an organization.  Review of Syllabus.  Overview of the course.
pptx file
pdf file