I'm excited to be working online with you. I think this is appropriate space because we all work so much online. This is an important question in this short semester:
How do communicate with technology?
Popping off a quick email, posting a comment to an online chat or even writing something more complicated can often be misinterpreted through electronic communications. I am sure you can all think of incidences where you thought an email meant one thing but you didn't understand the tone of the message.
Electronic communication can also be difficult because your don't want to write too much (no one will read it all) and you don't want to write too little because you don't want to leave out details that are important.
So how do we reconcile
- What we want to say
- How we want to say it
- Who we want to send it to and
- By what kind of communication do you want to send it?
Read the article posted in our Google Drive and watch this talk given by the author Nicholas Carr.
I want you to be thoughtful about how you try to work with the computer - our third most important tool - next to our brains and our voices.
This week you will have two assignments.
ASSIGNMENT 1
By Friday this week - you will post on the Facebook page the following information:
Introduce yourself to the class and write about your writing issues on our Facebook page. What are your biggest writing and communication challenges? What do you like about writing and what so you hate about it? Again this will be a challenge because we don't write "papers" on Facebook.
Take some time and think about how you use these technologies and if you think they make you a better communicator.
Think about every word you choose and have a reason for it.
For example, the above sentence started out as "You should understand why you choose the words you choose." As I read it I realized several things:
Verb generally make the sentence stronger; I didn't do that.
I used too many words when only a few were important.
I didn't explain myself well.
Which sentence do you think is better? AND WHY?
I have my reasons; what are yours?
ASSIGENMENT 2
For next Monday write a short brief 400-500 words on the email you read, Facebook posts, blogs, chats, articles from the industry blog or news sites you read. This is about how you interact with professional information. Use the reading from Week 1 from Nicolas Carr and the video to help you be reflective about your communication techniques.
SIDE NOTE - THIS IS ABOUT YOUR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION. If you are not reading, blogging, tweeting, sharing information about your industry of interest. GET ON IT!
Start reading or looking at the following:
WSJ
Marketplace
The Economist The smartest people in the world read this - be one of them.
In other words,
start to look at what you read
how it is written
how you react to it
Dig deep here. Don't just say, "I read the WSJ about manufacturing and all of the articles are well written. I understand and believe everything I read."
Think about the words. Think about a time when you experienced a miscommunication on an email or text. What was the problem and how did the problem resolve itself? Have you changed what you say in an email or text because of an incident?
Take some time and think about how you use these technologies and if you think they make you a better communicator.
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