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.