Critical Reflection - Communication

This week (week 6) we learned the importance of communication in group work.

Team One - Yaoyu, Lauren, Bassel, Anthony, Benjamin, Xiadong.
Project - The Creation of Gothic Architecture.

This team was very well presented and their delivery with their speech was superb. They were very vocal and clear with what they said. They defined what communication was and its importance when working in teams. I disagree to some extent when they said that speeches that are  "written are better as they are prepared beforehand". I feel like if someone is passionate about the topic they are talking about and they know what they want to say, then they will communicate much better to the audience as they would make more eye contact and engage with the audience. However having points on a card would be much better then reading from the cards. This will allow for eye contact with the audience and room for engagement.

The team gave examples of different types of communications from verbal to non verbal. I learned the terms Asynchronous and synchronous and found it interesting when the group compared different advantages and disadvantages of both terms. I agree with the team when they mentioned that synchronous communication can have a disadvantage when getting asked questions while asynchronous communication gives you time to think and respond.

The overall video presentation was very interesting and informative. The video was very well made and it was a comedy to watch yet the team still got their facts across and stayed on topic the whole way. The only thing the team lacked was telling their peers how they communicate and what is the best and worst type of communication for different projects.


Team Two - Martha, Anthony, Kerre, Darren, Daniel
Project - The Bus Stop of the Future

This team by far had the best presentation in my opinion. They covered everything the last team covered and more. This team went very into depth about the communication theme. I agree with them that effective communication can prevent problems and vital information as any error can be very costly with time meaning there could be issues with meeting deadlines and stress will kick in. I like how they noted down different methods of communication they mentioned such as talking, video, chat, phone etc. It made me think about the presentation that my team was gonna give and how to be effective with communicating what we researched.

They break down on how they communicate together in order to work together and share information with eachother which they mentioned was through facebook. I can relate to how they communicate as we communicate through facebook nearly 95% of the time.I created a group and invited everyone in my team and it has proved to be very efficient as some of our team members including myself had trouble understanding what to do. It is nice to know that there will be a reply pretty quickly to help you with your work. Facebook has helped us immensely when it has come to sharing problems and finding answers. I also like how the team broke down the most efficient way to communicate is to call someone to email the person you want to contact or if it is urgent then you should contact by phone.

Overall the presentation and delivery by the group was great. They covered all topics and made me think about how i could communicate better with my presentation and the different approaches i can go about when contacting people. I also learned the importance of different communication methods and which ones to use for what case.


Team Three - Marina, Andrew
Project - The Last Suprematist Sculpture

This teams presentation was entertaining and interesting. I liked the idea of using Marina's voice over while showing different images on the screen. I however think it would have been better if there was more information while Marina's voice was playing in the background of the presentation. The information was very well laid out and they mentioned everything the previous grouped mentioned except for the fact the other group explained how to communicate effectively. The only thing that i would improve on is the depth of information that the group went into.

Andrew did his part very well. He engaged with the audience and made eye contact and explained all the dot points in his power point pretty well. I like the idea how he mentioned that in his group there is only two people so they agreed on the roles each person takes. They agreed for one person to be the driver who does the work and the other a navigator who observes, provides guidlines, feedback and recomendations for improvement. They mentioned these roles switch in order to get feedback.

Their final video was made in Powtoons and seemed like an intresting program. I liked how they incorporated all their information into that final video and found it great as they used something no one else did in the class. I have added powtoons to the list of presentations programs i would want to use in the future.

Overall their presentation was very simple and straight to the point. They went into enough detail to get their information across although the group before them did a much better job. Their presentation on the other hand out did the other 2 groups and was a job well done.