My E-Portfolio!

Introduction to My E-Portfolio
On this site, you will find examples of the work I have completed so far in my college career.  This website will be updated as I progress through college to portray my best work to date.  At the moment, you will find an essay, a speech, and a few blog posts which I have completed throughout my first year at Penn State.  As I dwell into the next few years of my college career, more examples of my literary work will be added in order to portray an updated and current view of my writing and speaking abilities.

Prior to my Spring 2012 semester, I did not have very much experience with rhetoric and its overwhelming presence in everything we do.  However, upon entry into the Rhetoric and Civic Life class that I took during that semester, it became clear that rhetoric, if used effectively, can drastically improve your writing and speaking skills.  More importantly, I have learned how important ethos, pathos, and logos are in writing and speaking.  With this knowledge, I believe I am beginning to develop the ability to apply these rhetorical skills to my work in a way that clarifies and strengthens my overall message.

Michael Interdonato's E-Portfolio

Gary Hamel's Presentation Style

Recently, I had to do a project for my Management class in which my group discussed "skills" of organizations. A key component when talking about skills is an idea called "core competencies."  Core competencies are essentially the core skills of a business or organization that differentiate that business or organization from its competitors.  Core competencies were developed by two men, one of whom goes by the name of Gary Hamel.  Upon doing research on Hamel for this project, I found videos of presentations he has done on management related topics and in most of them, he used a very unique presentation style.

In class on Wednesday, we went over various presentation styles and one of those styles was the Lessig style.  Immediately when we went over this, I thought of Hamel's presentation.  Hamel's is much more appealing and slightly more complex  Nonetheless it seemed to be a variation of the Lessig style.  Above, I posted a video of a presentation Hamel did as part of the Phoenix Lecture series about "the dead hand of tradition holding us back" and restricting us from change.  I would recommend taking a look at the video because not only will it allow you to understand what I am saying, but it is also pretty cool.

The words displayed on the screen behind him are words that Hamel is saying and they are displayed as he says them.  This technique seems to be very useful.  It helps develop logos as you listen to the speaker.  Hamel is very a good speaker as well which helps, but the words flashing on the screen almost make it seem like everything Hamel is saying is true.  You hear him say it and then you see on the screen which, at least for me, makes the presentation very compelling.  All in all, I've found that this Lessig style of presenting really does work if done right.  It has some subtle rhetorical effects on you and makes the viewer more prone to understanding and believing the message.

Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense

Pranav Mistry

With my recent blog posts, I have started to become extremely interested in TED talks.  Mistry begins his TED talk by talking about his earlier inventions.  First off, he discusses his invention "Quickies" which are essentially intelligent Post-It Notes.  These notes are connected to your computer and as you write on them, the information is transferred to your computer.  The notes can also be synced with your phone, sent as texts, or answered if they are in question form.  When writing a question, the answer can be printed out after the computer reads what the question is.  In addition to "Quickies", Mistry invented a pen which can draw in 3D.  It uses cameras and receivers to see which what the pen is drawing and it shows up on  computer screen in 3D.  This can be helpful for architects.  Finally, Mistry moves on to his newest, and in my opinion coolest, invention.

Sixth Sense was originally developed as a bike helmet with a camera and projector on it which could read these colored tips that Mistry would put on his fingers.  With this, he is able to interact with the digital world and move around objects in a way that reminds me of the movie "Minority Report".  The color markers on your fingers are recognized by the camera which allow you to do things with objects and zoom in and out by pinching your fingers much like you would on your phone's touch screen.  He also wants to begin to use Sixth Sense in order to take pictures without using a camera.  Just by making a rectangular shape with your hands as if you were taking a fake picture, the picture would actually be taken and saved on your camera.  Then, you can view these pictures on any wall and edit them and send them to people.  Also, you can use things like your palm as a surface to project numbers and dial a phone number on your palm.

Mistry goes on to describe how Sixth Sense can be used to be show you information regarding objects you are holding in your hands.  For instance, he uses Sixth Sense to look at a book and then once the invention recognizes the book, it projects text reviews, sound reviews, and other info about the book.  Also, on a newspaper, you can video of events that occurred and also you can see live weather projected over a map on the paper.  There are other uses that he describes like reading an airline ticket and it projects whether the flight is on time, delayed, or cancelled.  The things that Sixth Sense can potentially do are endless and I found this invention to be absolutely amazing.

A 12 Year Old App Developer

DOGOnews

To continue with the subject matter that I discussed last week, Thomas Suarez is another very young individual who has accomplished pretty impressive things in his short life.  He has programmed multiple apps for Apple's operating system (iOS).  I personally cannot do that at all.  I did take an introductory programming class for Microsoft Visual Basic my freshman year of high school, but the best thing I was able to do by the end of that class was make a very simple and pretty bad version of the game "Snake."  I also could only do that because our teacher laid out the directions to the point that it barely required thought.  Granted at the time, I thought it was awesome that I made a game, but I have since come to learn that Suarez, who is only 12, is able to make fully functioning apps that are available on the app store.

Suarez spoke in a TED convention in which he made a very good point.  He said that it is very easy for kids to learn how to play the violin or play soccer because the resources in order to do that are very accessible and available.  However, a kid with the aspirations that Suarez had, which was to learn programming and make games, may not be able to find the necessary resources in order to do that.  Apple released a development kit which Suarez began to familiarize himself with and make test apps.  One of these test apps, called Earth Fortune, he later released in the app store.

Suarez, like Taylor Wilson who I discussed last week, is helping to persuade kids like him that they can truly do whatever they want to do with their lives.  Also, there is no reason that they cannot do something just because they are kids.  There is truly nothing that can limit or prevent you from going after your goals and enjoying your life.  Suarez definitely promotes civic engagement as well in that he is promoting the pursuit of programming.  He also spoke about using clubs like the one he started in his school where he can help other students and teach them about what he has done with creating apps.  He wants to ensure that the resources are available for students that are interested in the topic.

I found Suarez's Ted talk to be extremely interesting and inspiring and as I mentioned last week, I find that young kids' success stories are very moving to me.  It is amazing that he was able to do what he has done in his short twelve years of life.