Competency M
Demonstrate oral and written communication skills necessary for group work, collaborations and professional level presentations
Effective written and oral communication is the foundation of a successful career. In our current times we must be concerned with communicating through a variety of mediums and to a multitude of different audiences. We must be competent in working with our direct associates and in collaborations communication is key to avoiding repeating work or not including everyone. Another important group is communicating with management and different parts of an organization and presenting a clear message. In many organizations management require professional level presentations to delineate the progress and current situation of the institution. Another important audience is the public and in some cases collaboration occurs. Most often it is important to communicate and understand the desires of the public while informing in a clear manner.
As a profession communication is key and through my experience with SLIS I have been able to be part of a large variety of different methods of communication and interaction. Several classes have utilized Elluminate to facilitate individual and group presentations to an entire class. In some of these sessions I have had the opportunity to listen to professionals working in a variety of different fields utilizing the material learned in these courses. Another medium has been the usage of Second Life to provide an interactive forum with the instructor and classmates participating in real-time. Those tools have been essential for bringing classes together and sharing learning experiences as well as presenting professional level speeches regarding our class topics. Written communication is just as important and some of the mediums that we must concern ourselves with are blogs, wikis, sms, twitter, social networking environs, and messages to the public.
I am glad that my program has given me the opportunity to provide professional level speaking engagements. One event stands out in particular in my time with SLIS. During my research methods class one assignment was to participate in observational research in Second Life and report on it during a discussion with the class. This opportunity provided an interesting opportunity involving communicating with different audiences and different mediums. The task laid out by the instructor was to observe a subcultural group within Second Life and explain to the class a concept about the group. I contacted a friend I knew and asked her to assist me in finding a venue and group of people who I could interact with an answer various questions I had about the group. An interesting point about Second Life is that communication is through written chat, voice chat, and because everyone utilizes avatars to represent their identity my avatar required the appropriate wardrobe to interact in the environment.
The subject that I had chosen to investigate involved the concept of identity within a group of individuals related to a Goth and Industrial dance club. I disclosed my identity and purposes to the interviewees and interacted in the environment as an active participant. Through the conversations with members of this group I decided that there was a disparity in the viewpoint of how to express identity compared with members of the subculture and participants that were new or exploring that subculture. The members noted that new comers were more likely to play with their concept of identity and engage in behaviors that did not follow the group’s etiquette. New comers would often keep their identity in real life separate from the persona that they were playing. For members of the subcultural group their real identity was tied into the personas that they displayed online.
As part of the assignment I was tasked with translating this experience to my classmates. During my entire time doing the observation I recorded video of my time in Second Life and made screenshots out of moments that I wanted to highlight for my classmates. I chose to redact the names of the participants in the Goth/Industrial club and put these highlights within a presentation file on Elluminate. During my speech with classmates I was able to highlight the importance of observational research and the opportunities available in online interactive mediums such as Second Life.
Librarians in particular must understand that communication is essential in successfully pleading our case. Librarians have an image that is tied to the mechanical nature of the job and not the lofty conceptual goals that Librarians adhere to. In all messages that we present to the public and our managers we must stress the value and ethical fundamentals that our position promotes.
Oral communication has been fundamental in demonstrating effective understanding of principles in a course and illustrating how those methods could be applied in different settings. In my example of giving speeches and interacting in immersive online environments speech was essential.
Written communication has been an essential manner to communicate throughout the SLIS program and message boards were a starting point for coordinating group work. My first experience with group work I setup a Wiki through PBworks in order to simplify the task of working on a group database project with five other people. The wiki simplified our task immensely by providing a common area that group members could work on a document simultaneously. In my marketing course group members worked together on a group document delineating how a non-profit organization could analyze their current marketing platform and improve it. For this task we utilized Google Wave a program that is similar to a wiki but allows for multiple users to manipulate a document at the same time. By segmenting the paper into its individual parts each member was able to add their own thoughts and recommendations with instant feedback from other participants.
Through my coursework at SLIS I have been able to put this experience into practice. While I worked at Ashford University a sizable online university I communicated with hundreds of students, Academic Advisor co-workers, inter-departmental coworkers and management. Communication to students involved one-on-one conversations and written advisement in successfully complete a degree plan. Inter-departmental communication involved attending meetings and delivering presentations weekly based on subjects that particular departments required to successfully. My experience with SLIS vastly prepared me for this type of work and interaction. Much of my time was spent describing rules and helping coworkers with detailed documents on process and meetings spent presenting progress with student retention.