Posted: September 18th, 2017

Communication in the workplace

Topic: Communication in the workplace and Social Challenges

Dig a Little Deeper

Goal: To study a communications topic of interest in more depth

In this week’s assignment, you went on a search for Interpersonal Communication texts to overview the different topics that are covered by different authors. Some are covered in this course, others are not. This research project is your opportunity to explore a communication topic of your choice in more depth. You will be submitting your project at the end of Week 6 for peer review by five of your classmates. This allows others to benefit from your research. You may use a topic that is covered in our class, or is something of interest that you uncover in this research.

This is intended as a research project, but the final output is not required to be a term paper. You are encouraged use a creative method to present your information. Since this is a research project, you must identify and cite at least five different credible sources for your research. The goal is to synthesize your learning, and present it to the class.

The goal here is two-fold. First, this allows you to explore something you find interesting in the realm of communication. Secondly, it allows you to create something in an area of strength, or to experiment with a new technology for presenting information.

Presentation Suggestions

Your presentation format may be of your choosing. Remember,you are encouraged to be creative for this project. You may present your work in any of the following ways:

1. Create a digital story about your topic, using photographs, video and text and/or music/narration in Windows MovieMaker, iMovie or a similar application. You may list your sources in your posting when you attach your presentation or include them at the end.
2. Create an interactive presentation that includes a live feed of social media along with your content using Projeqt (Links to an external site.)
3. Create an infographic on your topic. One creation source for infographics is http://piktochart.com/product-features/ (Links to an external site.)
4. Create an annotated bibliography of sources on the topic for others looking to learn more about it. Your bibliography should include annotations about each source, and provide at least 15 references. See the ideas in the Purdue OWL for creating one at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/ (Links to an external site.)
5. Create a graphic novel and use the characters to illustrate your message. Include your research sources as footnotes, or at the end. Use Google to search for free comic creation tools.
6. Write a newsletter with different articles about aspects of your topic. You can find newsletter templates in Word as well as online. Here’s a set of newspaper format templates (Links to an external site.).
7. Create a PowerPoint presentation of at least 15 slides on your topic. Be sure to include your sources in the end in APA format, and in-text citations referencing your content on the specific slide where the content is used . Include the speaker notes in the Notes section, elaborating on the details of the slides. Remember, slides support the presentation, so they are at a high level. The meat is in the spoken part or script. Optionally, you may also use Brainshark

1.  (Links to an external site.) to deliver the presentation, recording the narration over the phone.
2. Create a Themeefy Magazine (Links to an external site.) about the topic. Review http://themeefy.com (Links to an external site.) for the how-to and some examples.
3. Write a 10-12 page paper on the topic. Be sure to include your sources in the end in APA format. Papers will be run through TurnItIn.com to check for plagiarism, so be sure to cite your sources!

Due Date and Evaluation

Your work will be evaluated by your peers as well as your instructor. After the projects are posted, they will be peer reviewed by five of your classmates, giving others in the class the opportunity to see your work, learn from it, and critique it. You will be reviewed on the message, the medium and the mechanics of your project.  Your peers will assess the content, the form and the technical/grammatical errors separately, allocating points for each category. The message is the most significant element of the project, but the medium and mechanics support them.

You may work on this project independently, or if you would like to partner with someone in the class, you may do that. In this scenario, the partners will all receive the same grade for the work. If you choose to partner or form a group there will be an additional element to the scoring. Your partner(s) will rate your effort on a scale of 1-100, and that score will be averaged into the class results from the rubric.