PLEASE READ THE BEFORE HAND SHAKE
Scenario:
You are working with one of the organizations below to create an instructional guide. You will be conducting research and promoting the instructional guide to the organization's board. Your instructional guide should explain the real-world use of an Internet product or products to your audience in a way that is sensitive to your audience's needs, expectations, and level of expertise.
The Internet sites you use for this task must be sites that are available to the general public (such as software support sites, social networking sites, search engines, video-sharing websites, etc.). Websites where users create accounts that are free of charge are preferred.
• Organization 1: A local parents group. Members of this group are evenly split in technological ability; half are very comfortable with technology, while the other half struggle with it. They need a guide that is geared to parents who want to learn about social networking sites that their children (of all ages) are using, as well as smaller, emerging sites.
Parents are looking for explanations of how the sites work, accounts and account settings, "friending" and posting pictures and links, and hands-on instructions for monitoring their children's accounts and postings.
• Organization 2: Librarians at a genealogical institute. These librarians use technology on a daily basis and are extremely comfortable with the technology they use. However, they need guidance for using online book sites to acquire new genealogy-related books and sell rare books they currently own.
They want to use sites like BookFinder.com, eBay, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and any others that are available, and need guidance for account and credit card safety issues, searching, previewing, pricing, getting and leaving feedback, using the terminology for describing book quality, setting up agents, and other aspects of online book selling.
• Organization 3: A charity organization. This organization includes mostly older adult members. Although most members of the organization can perform simple computer tasks such as sending an e-mail, they are, overall, unfamiliar with most technology and it takes them a long time to learn new applications.
Members want to be able to raise money by selling homemade crafts and other goods online to support local artisans while also raising money for charity. They want to use various selling sites such as eBay and Etsy, and need to know how to list items to sell and how to safeguard site accounts and PayPal accounts.
Your document should inform your audience about what they need and want to know, and provide instructions as well as advisory information and strategic direction. Your research should extend beyond your own personal user experiences to address your audience's anticipated needs.
The resources you will use for this task could potentially include online help and instructions available from the websites you are recommending, user boards, information you request via e-mail, YouTube instructional videos, or any other reliable source that provides information that helps you achieve your objective. You are to translate your research findings into one useful end product for your audience.
Task:
A. Develop an outline of the instructional guide that includes the following:
• Overview of relevant websites
• Guidelines for evaluating websites
• User security
B. Create sample sections of the instructional guide (suggested length of 5-7 pages).
C. Create a multimedia presentation (e.g., PowerPoint, Keynote) (suggested length of 6-12 slides) that is directed to the board members of the chosen organization, in which you do the following:
Note: The slides in your presentation should include only the main points you wish to make, with more extensive information included in the presenter notes section of the presentation.
1. Justify your design and writing decisions based on how the instructional guide effectively fulfills the audience's needs and expectations.
2. Justify the logic you applied when compiling sources into an instructional guide.
3. Explain how ethics played a role in your choices for including or excluding information in the instructional guide.
D. When you use sources, include all in-text citations and references in APA format.
MCT2 Task 3: You are a professional technical writer in this scenario, and you have been hired (or hope to be hired) to create an instructional guide for one of the three organizations in the scenario (your choice).
You will be creating a very detailed Outline of the contents of the Instructional Guide you plan to create, and also two 3-5-page sample sections to demonstrate what the finished guide will look like. In addition, you will be presenting a PowerPoint justifying your design and writing decisions, etc. to the Board of Directors of the organization. Three deliverables
A. Outline: Create a detailed Outline, which should include EVERYTHING that will be included in the actual Instructional Guide, and must cover the given points from the task instructions. See the sample Outline on the bottom of page 196 in your Pearson eText. Yours should be like a very detailed Table of Contents.
B. Sample Sections: Create two 3-5 page Sample Sections, which should be polished, complete examples of what the finished guide will look like in those sections, complete with graphics... and they must align perfectly with the appropriate sections of the Outline.
C. Create a PowerPoint that must cover the three rubric items of
C1. Design and Writing Decisions: Discuss each design and writing decision separately, and tie each one to specific audience needs and expectations as the basis for your decisions. List your design decision in bullet points on the slide, and then give detailed speaker notes explaining how each decision effectively meets your audience's specific needs and expectations. And use that language, which is the language of the rubric! Then do the same thing in another slide for your writing decisions.
C2. Logic: Discuss the logic you used as you consulted and compiled sources for the Instructional Guide. A source used doesn't necessarily mean material included in the Instructional Guide. A good technical writer will consult multiple sources to assure accuracy of information, to assure that the audience's needs and requests are fulfilled, to clarify any copyright issues, etc. Discuss a few points of logic on how you chose the sources to consult. It could even be YouTube videos, to make sure you