Thursday 04 September

We met in class today for the first time.

Everyone did their first oral presentation task by interviewing and introducing another student. We scratched beneath the surface of everyone's lives - interesting stuff!

I asked four small groups to come up with a visual representation of "communication." These were thought-provoking and helped our subsequent attempts to come up with a written definition ....

As can be seen, there seemed to be a consensus that communication involved a process where some form of information or meaning is passed between two or more entities.

These general thoughts about communication focused our attention on the communication processes that we will be encountering on the course. I highlighted that at times students will be the producers/senders of information and meaning through writing and presentations. At other times students will be receivers of information and meaning in their encounters as readers and viewers. Of course, generally we will be both producing and receiving information in a single activity (eg. discussions).

The course attempts to develop students communication skills in reading, writing, talking and listening. There are quite a few assessments, but all of them come back to these basic, but important, skills. Furthermore, given the nature of the course, and the high calibre of the student, we like to stretch you a bit!

I also mentioned that students are encouraged to use research and themes from other courses as the basis for the writing and presentation activities. I've talked to Joe McCusker and it seems that there are opportunities for students to use the personal projects from his course as the basis for writing tasks for Communication 4 and Oral Presentation Skills.