Communication

Sean Porter - System Earth - Spring 2007

Communication is an essential part of being able to contribute to a community. After all, if you cannot effectively communicate your ideas, the research you have done, or facts you have unearthed, you will not have any effect on society at all. This extends beyond just writing, it must include skills of oral communication, both one on one, and one to many. It also has to encompass other forms of communication, through visual means, pictures and video as well as through effective graphs and presentations. These skills are indispensable in everyday life as well as in the workplace and around the home.

Communication is so essential to relating to other people, you must be able to express your situation for someone to empathize with it. The other side of that is that you must be able to understand others, which is another essential component of communicating with people. You have to be able to effectively listen and assimilate information. Some would argue that it is our ability to communicate so effortlessly and in such a complex fashion that makes us human. I would argue that, as far as we know, that is true. Thus, improving our communication skills has the side effect of making us more human.

Progress

I have most certainly improved my communications skills this year, since I have used them so extensively throughout this course. The in-class discussions were a large part of that listening to my classmates expound their opinions and interpretations of our assigned readings was endlessly interesting, and I always have something to add, even if it is just to agree with what someone else has expressed.

I think the other huge influence on my communication skills has been writing. I have written more in the last year than I had written in the previous six years, in terms of volume alone, I have to assume that I improved at least a small amount, but when you account for the great constructive feedback I have received from my mentor, my instructor, and even my fellow classmates... I have gained a great wealth of experience in that respect.

Assignments

Ad Campaign Video
This assignment was a great exercise in using multimedia (video in this case) to call on people to make ecologically responsible choices. The assignment required us to choose a problem that is "obvious" which was quite hard until I found inspiration.

Ice Core Data(PDF)
This assignment is pertinent because it challenged us to take raw data, that is virtually meaningless in tab delimited form, and interpret it through the use of spreadsheet and graphing functions. We were additionally required to draw conclusions based on our visual interpretation of the data.

Individual Research Project Presentation(PDF)
This assignment is another good example of my efforts to effectively communicate research that I had performed, and distill it all down into an effective presentation. It is more effective if you hear my presentation as well, but the powerpoint contains a wealth of information that stands on its own.

This is a good example of the use of visual media to express a particular idea or set of ideas. It is accompanied by an explanatory piece of writing.

Our reading notes were a great exercise in careful reading, and I sometimes struggled to extricate the main points in order to write a succinct summary of the readings, but I improved at it with time and practice. I've included here some better examples, although the notes for chapter 1 are more of an example of where I began.

Globalization Essay
The globalization essay was one of my favorite assignments, it was a very interesting topic, and the essays that we read on it were enthralling. I felt very good about this essay even though I left it until the last minute, and I think it is probably one of the best examples of the quality of writing that I'm capable of.

Bio Sketch
This essay, even though it was one of the earliest ones we did, was a great opportunity to show our personal background. It was very freeform, but sometimes that is more challenging than a rigid, well defined assignment.