Creating An Impression First Assignment Spring 2011

The goal of this assignment is to help you acquire in class this semester the skills needed to produce an effective speech presentation. Find a clip of a presenter (celebrity, athlete, politician, etc.) on Youtube or some other video outlet available to you on the Internet, and evaluate why you feel he or she makes an impact on you through his/her speech. We will be using an assignment feedback form in class when we present our speeches to evaluate your peer's presentations, but for right now share your present understanding of what is effective and ineffective in your chosen subject's delivery and message. This presenter can be making a speech, giving an interview or in a film as a character who makes an impact on you. The clip should not be more than two minutes (it is just a small part of the whole presentation). Place the url address of the link in the blog for me and your peers to look at as they review your posting. Additionally, be prepared to share why you chose this person in our class meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 3rd. (so, you must post by our next class meeting. No late posting after this date will receive homework points.) As stated, you can use Youtube, news site (CNN.com, msnbc.msn.com) live.com/video, TED Talks site or some other video sharing location on the web.

WELCOME!

Welcome to Communication 240: Business and Government. I am looking forward to a creative and productive semester. I look forward to getting to know each of you and watching you evolve as effective communicators. I am excited to be here at TCNJ. I enjoy teaching this class because I teach from a practical perspective. It is so satisfying to help so many of you get prepared for your professional careers. We will be examining communication from a number of different directions all in the context of real life in both business and government settings. A few of the many paths that we will explore include investigating how messages are created from the perspective of the sender to how they are received from the perspective of the receiver. The channels used, the effective of culture in the formation of a message and the networks used. We will understand how to effectively communicate in business and examine how messages travel in a business environment whether you the management or subordinate. Additionally, we will focus on the presentational skills needed to give a talk, train an employee or ace a job interview, just to name a few. We will address the message shared in government and politics by using the 2008 Presidential campaign to examine the message and learn that making important decisions is more than the charisma but, analyzing the message. We will observe and apply technology and explore how it creates and changes in the message in new and fascinating ways. And, lastly, we will focus on networking and interviewing that occurs in professional settings. Blogging on our class blog will be an important method of capturing our thoughts. We will be using this blog to communicate in many ways in the class, so it is an important class requirement that you visit this blog a few times during the week to keep abreast of assignments and other important class information.

We will be using blogs as a means of recording our learning and studies. Every student is required to blog. You can begin by posting your blogs on our class blog post or as the semester evolves, create your own blog. Whatever the case, it is important that you remember that this is an extension of our academic classroom. You must use appropriate grammar, spelling and ideas in all your posts. Also, trying to rush through an assignment or making a weak effort in posting will be evident for all persons to see. Also, be sure to adhere to copyright issues in all posting. Only your originals work(s) whether words or pictures may be used. Please check out the Com 240 links throughout the semester for helpful places needed while in this course. You should feel free to email me at the address on the syllabus at any time for help, questions, concerns, or possible class absences.