I came across this high tech pen over at think:lab and immediately thought of uses for it in debate. Imagine being able to tap your flow and not only rehear what the speaker had said, but even play it back at a lower speed. As a judge, I see this coming in mighty handy on those high speed theory duels. I don’t know how the recording device would pick up the high speed speaking in a debate round, but its fun to dream about!
If you are in the debate community and you have not yet heard about the movie The Great Debaters, you must have been living in a cave recently! I am excited to see the movie as it looks like a great story and an inspiration, but I am even more excited to have this opportunity for lay audiences to get to know the amount of work and effort it takes to do this activity successfully. The Urban Debate League has worked hard to use this movie as a method of networking amongst past debaters, the regular public and current debaters. The website, Greatdebaters.org includes a lot of great resources for individuals wanting to use the film to make connections. In addition, you can register to sign up to win passes to screenings, explore the social networking sites dedicated to the film, get involved in community activism that relates to the film, and read news and blog entries about the film.
I have already had multiple people on my campus bring up the film and how exciting it is for debate in general, so I think it is really going to be a touchstone for programs across the US to draw attention from and make connections with individuals in their communities.
In addition to these great resources, there was a post in the news/blogs section about an online debate contest that the Princeton Review is hosting. Here is that information:
Submitted by jdkittre on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 04:22.
The Great Debaters is inspired by a true story and underscores the extraordinary power of debate. As ideas traverse our world more rapidly than ever, the need for debate has grown in our lives. To celebrate the purpose and potential of debate, The Princeton Review, for the first time ever, is hosting an online debate contest for anyone who has a voice and wants to be heard.
Two people–an affirmative and a negative debater–put together a debate on one of two topics, film it, and post it on Princeton Review’s site. The topics are:
Topic 1
Universities should use affirmative action to encourage minority enrollment.
Topic 2
MySpace is Your Space: It is ethical for colleges, parents, or employers to get information about people from social networking websites
Contest prizes include free video rentals for a year (from Blockbuster Video), plane tickets (from jetBlue Airways), an autographed poster (from The Weinstein Company), and many others.
If you have ideas about how to use the film to make community and campus connections and encourage more participation in our activity, please include them in the comments section!
I just want to take this opportunity to give a “I’m not worthy” bow down to all the DOFs out there who make it look easy. It is months like these that make me realize how difficult this job is. There is so much to do just in managing a team, but the DOF has to function as a Public Relations person, a development officer, a grant writer, and an event planner all at the same time as teaching classes, grading papers and serving on department and university committees. This all has to be done while working most weekends and don’t forget that most DOFs have homes and families that need to be cared for.
I’ve definitely made some mistakes this semester. First off, not putting things like our Speech Night and holiday party on the calendar early enough in the semester. We had poor attendance at Speech Night because it was during dead week and we didn’t settle on a date until really late in the process. The performances were great and I’m impressed with my students, but I was disappointed we didn’t have more people there to appreciate their work.
Second, not doing enough PR during the season. This is a major weakness of mine. I just have not been in touch with the on-campus PR people enough to get any substantive coverage. We had a nice article in our campus newspaper The Orion (and thanks to Tuna it made it onto the Global Debate Blog) and we had an article in our COMM newsletter for the Communication majors and alumni, but with our semester we really should have got more press. It is just one of those things that tends to fall through the cracks for me.
Finally, I realize that I need to balance my time better between debate and IEs. I also need to have more focused goals and practice with the IEers. I sometimes think of myself as a “debate coach,” so I’m tempted to stay out of the IE side of things. But, I realize that I have a lot to offer the IEers as well and I just need to step in and be willing to voice my opinion. I think I have valuable coaching advice, but I sometimes lay back more with the IEs than I do debate. I need to step up and actively coach them as well next semester.
So, for those of you who have found a way to do it all and make it look easy - kudos to you. Enjoy your holiday break because you truly have earned it. Being a college Director of Forensics is truly one of the hardest jobs in academia, and definitely probably the most underpaid for the amount of work that is required. I salute you DOFs!
Looking for a way to get your debaters and/or argumentation students involved in a debate outside the walls of the classroom or tournament setting? The Economist is hosting a series of online debates between experts and inviting online readers to participate in the debates as well as the evaluations of those debates. The current debate is whether governments and universities should compete to attract qualified students, regardless of nationality or residence. The reason I really like these debates is they offer a “real-time” results report, with comments from contributors and online readers.
I think this type of online debate offers students some insight into the way that experts put their arguments together and present them. It also offers them a way of applying some of the evaluation skills that they have been learning through the participation in debate, without having to actually “judge” at a debate tournament.
Another thing this is great for is seeing how more “lay” audiences evaluate the debates. One of the complaints I often hear about our activity is its lack of availability to the lay audience. This is a way of getting students used to some of the responses that more lay audiences may have and can function as an inspiration for a follow-up on-campus debate. The information resources are all there, as well as some of the issues that professionals think are important, which provides a relatively easy way of constructing an on-campus debate. Something I often struggle with when designing on-campus debates is taking the time to find the information about the arguments on both sides and getting the students to think about what issues may arise. All of that is done for them through these Economist debates.
Finally, I think it is a good thing to see that a publication with the respect that the Economist garners thinks that public debate and deliberation on key issues is not only important, but also can be interesting and entertaining. It provides our activity with some real-world applications, albeit online instead of in-person. Because of this, I would like to encourage you to support the Economist’s efforts and get your students involved in the online debates!
The next debate will be on the topic of social network sites and education and will begin in early 2008. This is the final debate scheduled in this series, but hopefully with interest, they will continue to have sponsor these types of activities.
If you know of other online debate resources, please post a comment with the url information!
I don’t know how many of you can remember back to your first speech and debate tournament, but the follow-up from the Rookie Tournament this weekend has really taken me back. Seeing the excitement on the students’ faces, hearing the absolute thrill in their voices as they talk about joining the team, seeing their pride and self-confidence after successfully debating their four rounds or speaking in prelims, semis and/or finals - it truly is heart-warming. This is why I do what I do. Sure there are other great things - the national tournaments with the thrill of national success, the friendships I’ve formed over the years, etc. But, nothing can replace the absolute joy I feel when I see speech and debate click with someone. And the Rookie is a place where people are clicking all over the place. I’ve already had three people contact me about debating and three others contact me about doing IEs and all of them had that hunger that comes only from getting that little taste of victory at the Rookie Tournament and wondering, what more is out there for me?
I’m already excited about next semester! I guess you could say I’m doing a little bit of clicking myself right now. Sometimes, I really love this activity - and this is definitely one of them! Here’s hoping you have a little bit of clicking going on yourself as the semester closes!
Once tournaments end in the fall (usually around early December), it may seem like a time to coast, but resist the temptation! This is a good time to do a few housekeeping chores that you probably won’t want to deal with (won’t have time to deal with) once you return in the Spring. Here is a list off the top of my head, but there may be stuff to add - please feel free to in the comments:
1) Go back and review all costs for the fall semester and see where your budget is sitting. This is the time to adjust the travel schedule if necessary as students should be notified ahead of time if tournaments are being added or removed from the schedule. I always try to have about 2/3 of my budget left for the Spring semester. With the cost of the national tournaments and a little heavier travel in the Spring, that seems about right. But, you may have a different type of schedule - just try to do some forward planning.
2) Get trip requests in for any tournaments happening over the break or early in the Spring semester. Its better to have this stuff done now and our campus literally shuts down over the break for about a week, so there will be no other chance to get requests in for the Swing tournaments and any other early January tournaments. Do it now!
3) Make reservations for as many Spring tournaments as possible now. This does two things - (1) saves you time and effort over the break or upon returning for the Spring and (2) insures that you will have rooms at tournaments that may run out of space due to holiday travel, spring break travel, etc. Start watching for airfare wars for those national tournaments as well. If you are lucky enough to already know who is going, buying them now can save you 100s of dollars in ticket costs. And even if you have to do a name change or two, that may be cheaper (usually $100 a piece) than missing out on a big sale.
4) Do a end-of-semester “press release” on any stand-out results from the Fall semester and some information about Spring tournaments.
5) Do some recruiting. Get flyers and letters out to all of the public speaking and argumentation classes on your campus. If you wait until the Spring semester begins, many students already have class conflicts and other obligations. But, if you can get them hooked in now, you can have them planning their work and school schedules around forensics. Consider having an “open house” during dead week, when you have some snacks and sodas and allow students from these classes to drop by and talk to students on the team and coaches about what it is like to be on the forensics team.
Again, this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully it will spur some thought on what you can be doing during this tournament downtime!
Enjoy these last few weeks of the semester without tournaments on the weekends (hopefully)!
A few posts ago, I posted the link to an article discussing the importance of research to the graduate student assistants who work with forensics teams. In that same issue of the National Forensic Journal, an article discussed the importance of research from a Director of Forensics perspective. Robert C. Aden, former Director at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire included the following reasons that research in speech and debate is valuable for reasons other than just achieving tenure:
These are pretty general ideas, but they are good reminders of WHY we should continue our efforts at research in the different areas of forensics.
