We had our second scout module on Thursday, and overall I thought mine was kind of a mixed bag. A few things worked out well. For one I thought showing how using natural language (in this case just using a question instead of keywords) doesn’t really work well on scout. For the first scout module I had a question in mind that I knew brought back a first result that wasn’t relevant, but for some reason when I used that search during the presentation it didn’t retrieve that exact article (I must have just worded the question slightly different on accident). This time I asked scout a question about cultural life in the antebellum south and the first return was an article about soil science and geology, so I thought that was helpful in showing some of the differences between how you search on scout and how you search on Google. I also thought the keyword searches that I did after that worked fine, and that also showed some of the differences between scout and other search engines. Freshmen presumably understand Google and are comfortable using it, so I think comparing and contrasting the two is one way to help them start to understand scout.
I did think my second presentation was a bit too similar to my first. I don’t know if that really matters since it was just practice, but I intended to do something kind of similar but with an emphasis on just finding books, and I’m not sure that really came off as the point of it. I had the same problems with getting in too much of a hurry and forgetting some parts of the presentation. I’ve tried not to have too much of a script for these things because I thought it would seem too scripted and mechanical, but the next time I do something similar to this I’ll at least have some sort of outline. I think I was better at not spending so much time behind the podium for this module, and I feel like I do better when I’m out in front of the class. At the podium I always feel like I’m slouching down, like it would feel a bit more natural if I was a couple inches shorter. Overall though I thought it went better than the first module.
Alex, I think you’ve hit your module’s strengths and weaknesses squarely with this reflection. The biggest lesson to learn from this experience is to come in organized and to take time during your presentation to make sure you’re staying on track. You did a fantastic job and I think you’re quite ready to start your co-teaching this week!