Effective Communication

The three modes of communication, e-mail, phone and face-to-face, have their place in sharing information and communicating needs.

E-mail is a good form of communication when it is important to document communication and give some important information.  This is especially true for larger amounts of information since it allows the individual to read through the message at their own pace and go back over parts that they need to review.  It is not always a good way to get results quickly, since sometimes e-mails may be lost or delayed in delivery.  The e-mail message in "The Art of Effective Communication" does convey the important information, but I don’t think this was effective in the situation posed.

Phone is important to attempt to reach the person quicker and try to impress upon them the importance of their assistance.  Many times a phone call can be more personal than an e-mail message.  The phone message in "The Art of Effective Communication" did share the importance of the information and was more effective than the e-mail message in conveying the need for assistance in completion of the project.

Ultimately a face-to-face conversation is sometimes the best way to get a response and communicate the importance of completing a task or submitting the information.  This really impresses upon the person that their input is important and they add value to the project.   Face-to-face meetings build trust between the individuals because relationships get built when people are put together (Luscome, 2010).  The face-to-face meeting in "The Art of Effective Communication" was the most effective communication in this example because it was the most direct and probably was the fastest way to get the needed results.

References

Luscome, B., (2010, June 22).  Why e-mail may be hurting off-line relationships.  Time. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1998396,00.html

Project “Post-Mortem”

I do not have any recent “projects” that I worked on specifically, but would like to talk about projects that were being worked on in my classroom toward the end of last school year.  This wiki project I had students work on could be considered a type of project, in which I attempted to manage within the classroom and online.

There were several issues that caused the project to be somewhat of a failure. I did not have any idea what the finished product should have been.  I knew what kind of time vrame we had to complete the project, but did not realize the needs of the students in researching and writing in their own words.  Too many of them did not write their wiki page in their own words and basically copied information from other websites onto their own.  I also did not realize how difficult it was going to be for students to have access to computers during the last month of school.

The project may have been more successful had I created a good description of what the finished product should look like.  It also would have been good to break down the tasks in to parts and describe each phase of the wiki design for the students.   I also should have began planning and scheduling the project earlier in the year so that there would be enough time to complete the project using the computers in the classroom or media lab (Greer, 2010).  I probably should have done some more task analysis in the design phase and that way there would have been more informaiton for defining the project and establishing a plan (Portney, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008).

As I think through this project for class, I realized that there are instances where teachers can be Project Managers in the classroom if they are approaching a project like a yearbook, or in this case a wiki project.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

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

Project Managment

I have not really thought about the idea of project management in instructional design.  It is an idea I am interested in learning more about.  Not sure if Managment is within my skill set, but it will be good to consider this for the future.