Friday - End of Class

Friday - Our group has submitted the group project. It is nice to have that completed. I would just like to reflect on this class. I enjoyed this class. I learned about a variety of ways to communicate. This class also opened my eyes to the types of communication that takes place online each day. I found the book for this class very helpful and informative. It was easy to understand and read. I enjoyed interacting with my classmates and look forward to my next online courses. I will definitely look for ways to communicate with my next set of classmates through online. The one thing that online courses lacked was the interaction with other classmates. The discussion boards are the main place that I interacted with my classmates but there is something about being able to see what the person looks like versus just seeing a name. It was also nice to talk with a few of my classmates over the phone. While it seemed time consuming and difficult to determine the best time for the interaction to occur the rewards were great. I believe this class worked to breaking down those barriers which is the lack of interaction among the students. I believe all online classes should encourage class interaction the way this class did. I am also excited about my new found friends from this class.

Chapter 15

Thursday - I was unable to attend a toastmasters Club meeting this week. The one closest to me was meeting at 12pm on Tuesday. The next meeting that I may be able to make in future weeks is about 20 min away. It begins at 7pm which is possible. I may look at going to one in the future. I know that my place of employment has encourage many of our team member to attend.
Today, I read over chapter 15. I found this chapter very helpful. The chapter covered the importance of outlining your upcoming speech or presentation. A well organized and thought out presentation flows in a natural manner. The three organizational structures that I am familiar with are chronological , cause and effect, and problem and solution. I was not as familiar with spatial order. This type of order would be used when talking about an earthquake-prone area. When giving a speech about a particular topic the introduction and conclusion are important. The introduction must hook in the audience so that they continue to listen to the entire presentation. It is also important when giving a presentation to avoid topics or words that turn people off. Anytime someone in church begins talking about “the end times” and how everyone is going to fly off. I immediately stop listening. The conclusion is also important because the speaker is summarizing the key points that he/she wants the listeners to retain.

Project and Ch 14

My group project is almost finished. Yesterday we all reviewed the project and made our finishing changes. It is almost ready to be submitted. My group is very excited.
Yesterday and today I have been reading over chapter 14. It works along side Ch 13. Ch 14 talks about researching a topic that you may speak about in public. Conducting research is essential. You don't want to give a public speech on an area that you have little knowledge on. Should someone ask a question that you are unsure how to answer they can discredit your entire speech. There are so many ways to research to conduct research in this society. The internet opens the doors to many portals of knowledge. A person can also send emails to credible sources for more information as well as get in touch with different newsgroups online. Conducting research is also a great way to gather information. When conducting research a person can observe, conduct information surveys and interviews. Once your research has been conducted the next goal is understanding how to make these statistics have meaning for your audience. The use of visual aids can help the audience make sense of the statistics from your research. I have found that most people like to see various graphs. Many people are able to grasp the material being presented with the use of different graphs such as pie and bar graphs.

It's Monday

I reviewed the rough draft of my groups presentation. I am very happy with the way everything is turning out. It is looking really good. It looks like we are close to being finished. It has been a bit of work but very helpful. My friend actually will have a job interview on Thursday for an internship teaching position. The power point presentation that my group developed has helped me assist her in preparing for this upcoming interview. We are going to get together by phone in order for her to practice with the interview.

I reviewed chapter 13 today. I found it very interesting since public speaking is not my favorite thing to do. In preparing a speech for the public it is important to know and understand your audience if possible. I also found that a self analysis may help in preparing an effective speech. A person can review their life in order to find potential topics to discuss. I think this may also be helpful when getting prepared for a job interview. One can review their life and recent accomplishment then look at creating a short summary should the interviewer ask questions of that nature.

Do you understand me?

We don't always understand people because people have different way of communicating. We also leave a lot of room for interpretation when we don't say exactly what we mean. Often when talking with close friends I don't say everything and most things are picked up because of facial expressions. Normally this is effective but sometimes it does not always work. Recently I played a game at work with a few team members. One person had a picture of shapes and was told to describe the picture to the person sitting at the table. The person describing the picture had to face away from the person drawing. I found in this exercise that each person thinks differently and that if we have a message to pass along we have to be very precise by giving specific instructions such as draw a circle in the middle of your paper. The circle should be 2 inches in diameter and 2 inches in length.

Thursday

This evening I learned about the qualities of a great leader. I actually made a connection about qualities that I felt were in great leaders. My director - Virginia is a great leader. The qualities that stand out the most is that she listens, has compassion, and works to see both sides of a situation in order to find the best solution. I have not actually taken time to think about why I admire her until I was working on the discussion this evening. The fact that she listens and has compassion draws me to her. I want to be a person that listens and shows compassion.

What is communication?

Communication is the transmitting of information either verbally or non-verbally. It is also listening and understanding what another person is transmitting. Communication can be done in a variety of ways to mention a few: email, memos, verbal, and non-verbal.

My group has continued to communicate effectively. This evening I will be calling one of our team members to assist with the power point. They shared that they were having difficulty.

The advantages of group work is that a variety of minds and ideas can work together to make a presentation better than it may have been had it been made by one person. The disadvantage to group work is that not everyone works at the same pace. This can cause confusion and frustration. The other disadvantage is a person that realise on others to do their work. This also would cause frustration.