Communicating Effectively

            We were asked to observe a piece of communication in three different modalities: as written text, as audio, and as video. Pause after receiving the communication in each modality, and reflect upon what you interpret the message to mean.

Here is what I observed from each communication modality.

Email:

Through an email, the message can come off a little rude. Instead of saying that you need that person to send you the report a.s.a.p., she went on in saying that the receiver is going to make her run behind if they haven’t done your work. She went further on, saying that if you haven’t finished your work; just send me what you have. This could come off as you saying that the receiver is not doing their work at all.

Voicemail:

This message wasn’t taken as being so rude because you could hear the tone of voice from the source. She sounded a little more relaxed in this setting.

Face-to-Face:

The smile at the end made her seem really friendly. I guess I could sense more concern in her voice because of the face-to-face environment. It also made me feel more sympathetic and would possibly make me want to get those documents to her sooner.

•    How did your interpretation of the message change from one modality to the next?

    Starting off with the email I felt as though the message could be interpreted in any way, which could possibly leave the receiver upset. The voicemail was able to give me a sense of how that person felt by hearing the tone of their voice in the message left. The face-to-face message seemed to be the most effective because the body language and tone of voice brought clarity to the sender’s message.

•    What factors influenced how you perceived the message?

    The tone of voice, written language, and body language were all key factors that influenced the way that I interpreted the message. According to Portny, et al. (2008), another way to avoid messages being perceived the wrong way is to avoid having an informal discussion with only some of the people who are affected by or involved directly with the specific topic.

•    Which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message?

    I would prefer a face-to-face meeting on any occasion or at least Skype. The reason being because there is less chance that someone will interpret what you are saying negatively if they could see and hear how you are delivering the message. There is little room for misunderstandings when someone is delivering a message in person. Although there may still be some confusion, it is easier cleared up through a face-to-face communication rather than voicemail or written communication.

•    What are the implications of what you learned from this exercise for communicating effectively with members of a project team?

    These activities made me realize that words are not always expressed effectively and can be taken in multiple different ways. The best way to communicate with a project team would be a face-to-face meeting if time permits. Dr. Stolovitch (n.d.) stated that there are two big things to remember about communication. He said remember to avoid ambiguity and document everything. Throughout working on a project a relationship with the stakeholders and team members over time, and they will learn what you can or cannot say to one another.

References

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project management planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Stolovitch, H. (Performer) (n.d.). Communicating with stakeholders. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher?type=Course&id=_2652514_1&url=

Learning from a Project "Post-Mortem"

Project: Operation Donation for Adairsville

This project was one that I guided my students through in my classroom. We were talking about the characteristics of a great citizen and one of the words was compassionate. The day before, a tornado hit North Georgia and destroyed the city of Adairsville. I asked the students what was a way that we could show or compassion toward Adairsville’s tornado victims. They began discussing multiple ways that we could show our compassion and soon decided on a food, clothing, and shoe drive.

Phase I: Determine Need and Feasibility

How could we have improved our need-feasibility or analysis phase?

Success: We were able to collect a bulk of items that we donated to the tornado victims in Adairsville.

Failure: We should have communicated with the donation centers prior to deciding on how we wanted to help Adairsville tornado victims. By communicating with the donations centers, we could have raised money or had our school donate the items that they needed the most.

Phase II: Create Project Plan

How accurate were our original estimates of the size and effort of our project? What did we over or under estimate?

Success: We ended up having enough space to drop off all of the donations that were sent in by parents and students alike. All of my students worked well together to accomplish the same goal, which made it easy to do. My students were so excited about the good deeds that they were doing, that they all wanted to ride to Adairsville to give the donations to the victims themselves. The IB coordinator at my school assisted my students and I with this action plan, just like Portny, et al (2008) insisted that you consult with upper management about limitations regarding desired outcomes.

Failure: Next time I would plan ahead, and ask multiple parents in other classrooms to drive to Adairsville to ensure that we will have enough space. We should have planned where we were going to keep all of the donations, prior to the kick-off of the event. We ended up having to put accepted donations in any rooms that we could find. Early in the production portion we realized that we would not have enough time to construct an event, because we wanted to be immediate help for Adairsville.

Phase III: Create Specifications for Deliverables

Did all the important project players have creative input into the creation of the design specifications?

Success: I was extremely proud of the posters, flyers, and videos that my students made. They were really creative and informative at the same time. We made sure that each flyer, poster, and speech informed our audience of the name of our project, what we were doing, where we were doing it, when we were doing it, and the time.

Failure: I had some students who did not participate in this entire process, which was upsetting to me. I would have liked to give them a specific job, like a monitor. The monitor could have walked around and helped other groups with spelling and neatness on their portion of the project. However over time, team members will become more familiar with each other’s skills, knowledge, and operating style (Portny, et al., 2008).

Phase IV: Create Deliverables

Did all the important project players have creative input into the creation of the deliverables?

Success: I was proud that my students were able to come together on a collective goal. The deliverables were prepared and completed in a timely manner.

Failure: I wish we had time for the students to switch roles within the project. I think that some of my students would have done a great job in multiple roles. Because the project was time sensitive there wasn’t much time to allow students to explore the different roles of the project. We could have also improved the look and neatness of the deliverables improved if I would have allowed students to take the deliverables home to make. To ensure student involvement next time we could allow students do whatever is comfortable to them.

Phase V: Test and Implement Deliverables

Was our implementation strategy accurate and effective?

Success: The speech and video that my students made was a successful medium of delivery that informed the entire school of our project. I called multiple donation agencies to make sure they were accepting donations before we drove to Adairsville and set up a time for the volunteers to meet up and load the vehicles.

Failure: We put the posters and flyers up a couple of days before the event. However, we could have received more donations if we put the information up for a longer period of time. The donations were kept in many different places and were not organized properly.

Project managers usually write a statement of work before starting on a project. If I would have written a statement of work for this project, students would have been more organized, and would have felt a sense of responsibility if they each had to sign the statement of work. According to Portny, et al. (2008), many successful project managers think of Statements of Work as binding agreements in which project managers and their teams should commit to producing certain results. The purpose was to help the tornado victims of Adairsville by hosting a donation drive. The objectives were that the tornado victims would have a temporary relief of needed items. The constraints written would have been pertaining to our time sensitive project and assumptions were that we thought we knew what the tornado victims needed. In reality we should have investigated and found out what they needed.

References

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project management planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

EDUC 6145

I will be using this page to blog about my project management course. I look forward to learning a lot throughout this course.

My Reflection on Distance Learning

            Currently there are still employers, teachers, students, and parents who are skeptical of distance learning. The reason being is because successful conversion of course delivery method is not always guaranteed (Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001). Thus, consumers need to continue to be aware and research the distance learning programs that they are interested in. Make sure that the organization is accredited, look up the yearly costs, and graduation rate. A helpful tool to use would be the College Scorecard, which is an interactive tool the government developed to help inform potential college students about our nation’s colleges (The White House, 2013).

In 5-10 years…

            The future of technology is very promising for all degrees of educations. I believe that online learning will become mainstream. The delivery and the interface of distance learning will continue to be enhanced which will attract more people.  People will start to realize that the geographic distance is no longer a factor. The use of more multimedia will began alleviating those feelings of not having a physical instructor present. According to Dr. Siemens, distance education benefit corporations by allowing them to interact with different offices around the world. They will also become more susceptible to distance education if we continue to bridge the gap of comfort in online courses (Siemens).

In 10-20 years…

            Distance education will become more prominent in traditional universities and I think more blended course will arise. This will also help the traditional university by allowing them to accept more students by implementing blended courses. I would like to think that this would lower the cost of education in America, but for some reason I think the cost of education will continue to increase because we will be paying for the convenience. However, people will become better educated because of the growing diversity that is occurring in online courses. I have learned the majority of what I know through course readings, and peer interaction. Distance learners must remain open-minded; there are many people in the world who have valuable opinions that could potentially change our way of thinking.

            As I continue on to graduate from an online program, I can exhibit the skills that I have learned through my job opportunities. Showing the employer how well trained I am, being a graduate of an online university, will positively change their perspective on online degree programs. As an instructional designer, I will be introducing the potential of distance learning and how it can positively affect their company. Not only will it save them money, but also it is a better and faster means of communication.

            I will continue to look for ways to improve distance education, by using best practices in my training courses. By loosely following ADDIE process to build my training courses, and conversing with the SME will help me create effective training courses. According to Schmidt and Gallegos (2001), providing the student with the best possible scenario where learning outcome will be maximized is the goal of course development. As I continue to develop my skills and implement them into my job field effectively, I will have an everlasting effect on those familiar and unfamiliar with distance education. Hopefully persuading them to use it once again.

References

Schmidt, E., & Gallegos, A. (2001). Distance learning: Issues and concerns of distance learners. Journal of Industrial Technology, 17(31), Retrieved from http://atmae.org/jit/Articles/schmidt041801.pdf

Siemens, G. (Performer) (n.d.). The future of distance education. [Video podcast].

The White House (2013). College scorecard. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/college-score-card