It has been really satisfying how much I have been able to apply the content of this class to other situations. At the same time, I have never realized how much communications is taught in other classes. It is kind of like how you never see something until your forced to notice it, then you see it everywhere. The fact that I have learned about appropriate presentation skills and good communications in business and animal science classes, illustrates the importance of communication everywhere, all the time. In my AREC 323 class, students have to do a group project creating a business. In introducing this project, the professor showed us a few clips and exercises on team work and communication. I found this one particularly interesting and relevant to ALES class material, - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqk0baXEaL8. The video talks about how the communication of a message involves many components, including tone, body language and of course words. We talked a lot about the correct use of these aspects of communication in the presentation labs. Although I think social media is a great way to communicate, we have to be conscientious that we are only getting part of the total message.
We have all experienced the email complication that the video talks about, but message communication became even more relevant to me, in my field of study this past week. I am enrolled in an animal production capstone class and a large component of the class is about communication in the industry. We have to do regular journal reflections on the progress of our projects and what we have learned, so in my reflection I wanted to tie in the issue of communications within our group and outside of the class. Within our group, we have experienced the email miscommunication of the message issue. A great portion of this problem was due to the construction of the email, and an unconsideration of tone due to its casual nature. I then started thinking about miscommunication in my field of studies, and with animals. Due to the lack of words in an animal's message, we have to gather other cues they are offering in order to receive the whole message. Unfortunatley, unlike emails, there is no specific way to format, and recieve a message from animals.
Outside of school I do a lot of riding and barrel racing, and with horses, the message I receive is reduced to many visual components. Due to the lack of words, which makes up MY whole message, I often misinterpret messages from my horses. For example, this horse is sore and not working right, although she tried to tell me this, I interpreted her message as her misbehaving. As a result, we fought for a long time before my vet and I recognized the whole message.
The importance for proper and whole communication using many sources, in the workplace, and in education, is synonymous to communication when working with animals in animal heath, production and science. Check out my classmate Kira's blog - http://kamacmilblog2.blogspot.com/ - She too is active in horses and really interested in communications and animal behaviours, and in her blog she talks about her experiences receiving messages from animals. She has also found some really great researchers in the field of animal science via tagging. Check that out on the ALES 204 communication blog under lecture 16 - (http://ales-204.blogspot.com/search/label/module%206)
The importance for proper and whole communication using many sources, in the workplace, and in education, is synonymous to communication when working with animals in animal heath, production and science. Check out my classmate Kira's blog - http://kamacmilblog2.blogspot.com/ - She too is active in horses and really interested in communications and animal behaviours, and in her blog she talks about her experiences receiving messages from animals. She has also found some really great researchers in the field of animal science via tagging. Check that out on the ALES 204 communication blog under lecture 16 - (http://ales-204.blogspot.com/search/label/module%206)
