Early Bird Posts

Hello All! Here is a list of folks who have blogged already this week. Go ahead and stop by their blog to get a start on your comments for the week.

marikamania
GCL
Kolby
Ibirapuera

Let's congratulate these folks for getting an early start! Good job!!!!!

Week of September 27-October 3

Hello Class!

Here is what's on the Schedule and Participation Pages for this week:

1). Read Chapter 3 - Listening and Perception & Chapter 4 - Encoding Messages: Spoken Language

2). Review the details of Assignment #2 - Cultural Event Paper. Email me by Friday, October 2nd @ 11:59pm for event approval.

3). Participate in the class discussion this week:

Answer one in each of your three posts, at least 12 hours apart:

1). Is it possible to perceive others without judging or categorizing them? If so, how? If not, how can we make the judgments we do make, more fair?

2). Do you agree that men and women use language differently? In what areas?

3). Pick on concept from the assigned reading, not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

Remember to post 3 responses to your colleagues blogs.

Looking Ahead
*Journal Entry #2 should be completed next week. Please click on the Label "Journal Tips" on the right hand side of my blog. Clicking on that will bring up all posts related to the Journal Assignment that I have posted so far. Pay particular attention to THIS post. Reminder: All journal entries will be due on November 28th @ 11:59pm. The week of November 28th is Thanksgiving week. You may submit your journals early if you are going to be out of town.

*Midterm - Our midterm is scheduled for the week of October 11th - 17th. Go ahead and start studying for that. It will cover Chapters 1-5, 9&10.

*Cultural Event Project - This project is due by October 30th @ 11:59pm. You will submit this project through email. Be sure to plan ahead so you can submit your paper by the deadline.

Personal Note:
I am very excited about the content of the course for the next few discussion weeks. Actually, I love the content of the course in general, but this week and next week are very interesting to me. I will post to my blog about a concept or two from the chapters this week, so look out for that post.

Journal Assignments

Hello Class!

There seems to be some lingering confusion about the Journal Assignment. Please read over THIS post, and THIS post again.

There is also a label on my blog, lower right hand side called "Journal Tips". Anytime I post about the Journal Assignment I will label it so you don't have to search my blog.

To summarize, all Journal Entries (all 5) will be due on the same day - Saturday, November 28th. On this date you will compile all of you journal entries and email them to me. I will briefly look over them and then email them to each member of your group (I have not assigned groups yet). Once you have received your classmates journal entries, you will have a couple of weeks to evaluate them and return them back to me. Once they are returned to me, I will look over the evaluations, compile them, and return your journal entries back to you with feedback from your group members and an assigned grade.

Let me know if there are more questions about this! :)

Office Hours Reminder

Hello Class!

As a reminder, you can chat with me in real time on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 10am to 11am. I'm usually on Yahoo Messenger quite a bit more than that, so if you see me on and want to chat, just pop in. I love chatting with students no matter the hour! Sometimes I'm on Yahoo pretty late.

You are more than welcome to chat with me about anything. It is my hope that this class is completely transparent and that there is no ambiguity. So if there is ever a question about, well, anything, please email me or pop in to chat.

I have very much enjoyed meeting some of you on Yahoo Messenger, and chatting over email. I hope to get to know the rest of you better as time moves on in the class.

ON CAMPUS!!! I will be on campus tomorrow from about 11am to 4pm. I will not be in my office the whole time, but if you want to stop by and say hi, let me know what time you will be around and I will tell you where I'll be on campus. I spend most of my time in the HGH building, but will be in a few different places tomorrow.

Quiz Reminder

Hello Class!

I am very pleased that some of you have found the list of Cultural Events useful. If possible, please try to contribute to the class community by finding an approved event so others in the class have more options.

As a reminder, there is a quiz this week. You should log into Blackboard and click on Assessments on the left. You should see that Quiz 2 is available. Please click on the quiz once you are ready to start.

***You are more than welcome to use your book, any of the chapter outlines that are posted on Blackboard and even the Powerpoint Slides I have posted.***

You should submit your quiz before the 20 minute time limit. Any questions submitted after the 20 minute time limit will not count in your quiz grade, so watch your time carefully.

If you want to get a head start on the discussion questions for next week, the questions are located on the Participation Page on Blackboard. If you get a head start, please post within the time limit (starting Sunday at 12:01am), and not early.

I'm always available to answer questions for you - just email, catch me on Yahoo Messenger or if you'd like, we can chat on the phone. (I like chatting with students over the phone because it actually puts the 'person' back into the equation. Sometimes folks forget there really is a person on the other end of the computer).

Have a fabulously wonderful day everyone!!! :)

Approved Cultural Events

Hello Class! Below I have listed some events that have already been approved. It should be your goal to contribute to the class by finding a cultural event of your own so I can post it to the class blog. When you get a chance, please send me your cultural event choice for approval.

San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival - Sept. 20-27

Spirit of Japantown Festival - Sept. 26

Italian Heritage Parade/Festival - Oct. 11

Polish Festival/Church Service - Date unknown

Jazz Festival - Sept. 26

Oktoberfest - Oct. 17-18

And finally, here is an extensive list of Festivals in California! You might find something interesting in that list. :)

Please see the assignment sheet located on the Handouts Page for more detail of possible ideas for the Cultural Event Paper.

As a reminder, tomorrow is another furlough day. I will be offline all day and I will not hold office hours, nor will I be available to answer email, unfortunately.

Week of September 20-26

Here is what's on the schedule for this week:

1). Read Chapter 10
2). Complete the Quiz on Chapters 9 & 10 on Blackboard
3). There is no discussion this week.
4). Assignment #1 (Public Speech Critique) has been canceled due to furloughs. Please DO NOT complete this assignment.

Personal Note: I know I have mentioned this before, but I am highly disappointed with the scheduled furloughs this semester. The content of our discussions that have been canceled and our first assignment (Public Speech Critique) that has been canceled is some of my very FAVORITE material in this course. Of course there are other weeks such as the week we cover Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Small Group Communication and Nonverbal Communication which are equally exciting! In fact, Nonverbal Communication is a HUGE interest of mine, but I will discuss that more on my blog as that discussion week approaches. I love the discussion for that week. Nonetheless, I feel like our class is missing something big because of the canceled discussions and assignments. My love for this course runs deep and I get very excited when folks start blogging about the discussion questions for a given week. I know, I know - you can call me a communication nerd, but I have to admit, I love communication studies.

For your benefit, you are more than welcome to watch the videos that I have chosen for the first assignment. Of course there is no credit associated with watching the videos, but they are interesting. I have found that most students have not yet watched the MLK video in its entirety, rather they have seen the last 6 minutes or so. Billy Graham, Ronald Regan and Mary Fischer also have videos that are equally interesting. Here are the links in case you want to view the videos:

Billy Graham

Martin Luther King Jr.

Ronald Reagan (this is an audio only speech)

Mary Fischer

Again, reviewing these speeches is optional since this assignment has been canceled. They are beneficial to you as a student and considering my love for all things public speaking, I had to offer the opportunity to review them. I hope you all like these speeches as much as I do, should you choose to review them.

Until later.....

Grading

Hello Again!

I have completed grading your blog posts and comments for the week of 9/6-9/12 and have posted those grades to Blackboard. Please check your grade and let me know if there are any questions.

A bit about grading: If you ever feel any ambiguity in the evaluation process in this course, please email me. My goal for this course is total transparency for each student. However, since this is an online course, transparency begins with you as the student. I can only address issues if I know they exist. If this were a face to face class I would be able to easily explain how grading works, chat with you before/after class about your grades, etc... Online classes face many challenges and some of you are aware of these challenges due taking repetitive online courses. Others may have expectations that are not being met. I have mentioned a few times so far that I'm always available to chat through email, Yahoo Messenger and over the phone in case there are every any questions.

How I evaluate your blog posts and comments: As stated on the Participation Page, I look for a few things:
*Have you complied with the guidelines listed on the Participation Page?
*Does the content of your post/comment relate to our reading this week?
*Have you address the question in its entirety on your post?
*Have your given thought to the post you have commented on?
*Have you included the minimum number of words required in each post/comment?
*Is your post/comment within our discussion week?

If all of these questions have a 'yes' answer, there should be no reason why you earn anything less than full credit.

I hope this helps to clear up any ambiguity as it relates to the evaluation of your posts.

Have a wonderfully fabulous (and communication filled) day!!!

Journal Tips

Hello Class! I hope you are all having a wonderful time completing your first Journal Assignments. As previously mentioned, your journals will be evaluated for content as well as writing style. To get started on revising your journal assignment, please pay close attention to the follow areas in The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook:

Page 47, Section 8b - Understanding Tense
Page 51, Section 8d - Understanding Voice
Page 65, Section 12a - Writing Concise Sentences
Page 70, Section 13a - Revising Unnecessary Shifts
Page 78, All of Section 16 - Choosing Words
Page 86, All of Section 18 - Using Commas
Page 94, All of Section 19 - Using Semicolons

Each of these sections in your writing guide will be addressed as part of your evaluation for your journal assignment. Since you will be using these sections to grade the journals, it might be a good idea to go through each of these sections and apply the principles to your own essays.

Look out for another post this afternoon. Until then......

Journal Entries

Hello Class!

Many of you are probably curious about the Journal Assignment since there is no ongoing due date for the assignment on the Schedule or Syllabus.

On the Schedule Page there is a due date of all journals on Saturday, November 28th. All journals from you will be due at that time. This means that you can work on your journal entries throughout the semester. My suggestion is to do them during the weeks I have assigned, and try to avoid procrastinating. The end of the semester can get busy as you know, so getting those entries done early will only help you out.

The journal assignment also has a second due date of December 8th. Each person will turn in their journal packet (containing all five journal entries) to me in November. I will compile each students packet, put you into groups of 4-5 people and each person in your particular group will grade your journal entries. The journal entries you are grading (your colleagues journals) will be due in December.

The journal assignment is worth 125 points of your total grade. 100 of those points are for your journal entries and the other 25 points is for your participation in the grading process. I will obviously attach grading guidelines so each person can grade the other 3-4 journals with absolute consistency. These guidelines will include content and writing style. The Communication Department has moved to 4 unit classes. Each 4 unit class has a strong writing component and each essay should be graded for content as well as standard writing rules (see your Pocket Writing Guide).

I am putting you as the student in the driver's seat for this particular assignment for a number of reasons.

1). It gives you an opportunity to see what other folks in the class are writing about.

2). It allows you to give your opinion about your colleagues writing.

3). The journal assignment will diversify your grading.

4). Grading a few journals should be intellectually challenging.

5). Increases diversity in the class.

6). Provides additional meaningful feedback, not only from the instructor, but from others.

7). Establishes an atmosphere of community and enhanced learning.

8). Reinforces relevant course material from a number of different perspectives.

9). Helps you analyze complex and abstract ideas as presented by others relating to course material/content.

10). Applies course content in a real-world setting.

When each journal is returned to me I will compile the grades, average them out, check for consistency, make sure there are no inaccuracies, and assign a final grade taking into account your colleagues feedback. In other words, I will average out your colleagues grades for your journal entries and assign a final grade, but will check for accuracy first to confirm that I agree with the particular grade given. Your journals will then be returned to you during finals week with feedback from your colleagues and I, and will contain an overall grade for the assignment.

Since there is a wide variety of opinions, perspectives, feelings, etc... in this course, I ask that you be open-minded about this assignment. I have found that some students can be slightly resistant to a project of this nature at first, but you may find that this assignment is one of your favorites in the course due to the hands-on approach we are taking with it. I appreciate your feedback and highly respect each of your opinions, so if there is anything you would like to bring to my attention, please let me know.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this assignment or anything else in the course.

Have a fabulous day!!!

Changes to the course

I have made some changes to the Schedule Page and Participation Pages on Blackboard. I have added the assignment descriptions instead of just listing "Assignment #1" I have added the name of the assignment to alleviate any confusion. This should clear up any ambiguity.

I also changed the quizzes and tests due to student request. You will now be able to review your quiz/test to see which questions you missed by reading over the question text.

I hope this helps you all out a bit!

As always, please DO NOT HESITATE to contact me if you have questions. My goal for this course is TOTAL transparency and TOTAL understanding.

I hope you all have a fabulous day!!!

Public Speech Critique

Hello Class! As you may have noticed, the Public Speech Critique has been crossed off the Schedule Page and Syllabus. This is due to state mandated furloughs. This assignment has been canceled (it will be reinstated in future semesters where furloughs are no longer an issue).

In short, PLEASE DO NOT do this assignment. I would hate for you to do unnecessary work.

As many of you know the state not only cut the education budget significantly, they also cut the salaries of the staff, faculty and other employees on campus. In turn, we have been forced to cut 10% of our course content. This translates into canceled discussions which would have been intellectually challenging to you as a student and it has also forced cutting certain assignments out of our curriculum - also which would have been intellectually challenging to you as a student.

I know some of you are doing a little happy dance about fewer assignments, but it really DOES affect the quality of education we are able to provide.

I'm disappointed that we will not be participating in this assignment because it is an intellectually challenging assignment, which also forces you to think back to your Public Speaking course and to reiterate the concepts you learned at that time. Unfortunately, canceling this assignment is necessary during these interesting times.

The good news about this though, is that we are able to focus on those intellectually challenging ideas in other assignments and during our remaining weeks of discussion.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Remember: I am ALWAYS available to clarify content in the course, clarify grading questions, other course questions, or to simply chat about whatever it is you want to chat about. I'm always available through email, Yahoo Messenger or phone conversations.

Week of September 13-19

Listed below is from the Participation and Schedule pages on Blackboard:

***Read Chapter 9, Public Communication.

1). There will be no discussion this week due to state mandated furloughs.

2). Assignment #1, the Public Speech Critique has be canceled due to furloughs. Please work on Assignment #2, the Cultural Event Paper.

3). Please start to work on Journal Assignment #1 as it pertains to Chapter 9. I will post more about the Journal Assignment at the start of the week, so look out for that post.

Grades Posted and Blog Reminders

Hello Class! I have updated grades to Blackboard for the first and second weeks of class. Please look over your grade and let me know if you have any questions.

Here are some reminders about blogging and commenting (just to reinforce the parameters):

1). There are 3 questions per discussion week. Please answer those questions in 1 post each on your blog. Make sure your posts are at least 12 hours apart. Pay attention to your date and time stamp. Each post should be 150 words minimum - there is no maximum.

2). Comments should be on 3 different blogs. Each comment should be a minimum of 100 words each. There is no time restriction for comments, and can all be done at the same time. Make sure you are logged into your blogger account when leaving comments so your alias/display name appears.

3). I check the word count for all blog posts and comments. It is your responsibility to make sure your posts and comments meet the minimum requirement.

4). Your posts and comments need to be within a given discussion week. This means that if our week runs from 9/6 to 9/12, and you comment on a post that is not within that date range, you will not receive credit for that comment. I only check the posts and comments for that week. I do not go back and re-check past posts to see if someone has mistakenly commented on a past post.

5). It is recommended that you keep track of all dates/times/locations/word counts of your posts and comments. If you would like to email me about a grade, please include the following information in your email:
*Time and date of your posts including word counts
*Time and date of your comments including word counts

The information I have included here is located on the Participation Page on Blackboard. I also posted a blog last week about the first discussion week and reminded you of how blogging and commenting works. It is your responsibility to know everything that is on Blackboard and what is posted to my blog.

As always, I am available for questions through email, over Yahoo Messenger and of course to schedule a phone conversation at any time.

Furlough Day

Hello Class! Remember, tomorrow is a furlough day. I will not be holding office hours online or answering emails. I will resume answering emails on Friday.

Social Constructionist Perspective

I am excited about the posts this week. I find this chapter very useful for a number of reasons. The first relating to the question posed about the Social Constructionist Perspective. The Social Constructionist Perspective assumes we see the world in a certain way and because of certain things. We build our world through our experiences and our symbolic, constructed reality.

Would you agree that we see our world through cultural blinders?

Do we follow 'social rules'? If so, what are examples of rules?

Does this approach have limitations?

Until later...

Early Bird Posts

Usually on Tuesdays I go through the blogs to see who has started posting early for the week. Here are a list of folks who have blogged already. Go ahead and stop by their blog to get an early start on your comments for the week.

Chivista
marikamania
CrushedVelvet23
1986dman
Ibirapuera

Let's congratulate these folks for getting an early start! Good job!!!!!

Cultural Event Reminder

I have only heard from a few people regarding the Cultural Event Paper. If you haven't done so, start checking newspapers and of course online for local events. Email me once you have made a decision about what cultural event you would like to attend.

Week of September 6-12

Listed below is from the Participation and Schedule Pages on Blackboard:

***Read Chapter 2 - Definitions, Models and Perspectives

***There is a Quiz this week on Chapters 1 & 2. Please go to Blackboard to take the quiz.

Discussion: Answer one in each of your three posts, at least 12 hours apart:

1). Consider the social constructionist perspective. How do we "build worlds" through communication? Think of some ideas we talk about in our culture that may not exist in other cultures. How do these concepts contribute to our happiness of success (or the lack of these) in our culture?

2). Consider the pragmatic perspective. Does it make sense to think of communication as patterned interaction? How is communication like a game? How is it different from a game?

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

***Remember to post 3 comments to your colleagues blogs this week. As a reminder, the comments must be about the discussion this week. Posting on a past discussion will NOT count for credit.

REMINDER: Thursday, September 19th is a furlough day. I will not be conducting any university business this day. I will not answer email, grade blogs or papers, and my office hours are canceled.

Late Policy

Please make sure you are aware of the late policy on the syllabus. If your blog posts and/or comments are even 1 minute outside of our discussion week, they will not count for credit. Papers/assignments, etc... also have a due date and time. If they are submitted late through email (even one minute late for any reason), you will either earn no credit or partial credit for the assignment. In short, review the late policy on the Syllabus.

Contacting Your Instructor

Here is a little reminder about how you can go about contacting me. There are 3 ways:

1). Email. I check my email during the week, M-F numerous times a day. I also check my email periodically on the weekends, but response time may take a little longer than during the week.

2). Yahoo Messenger. Download Yahoo Messenger if you haven't already and add me as a friend: carolperezcommclass As it states on the "Getting Started" page, I do not use Yahoo Messenger for personal use, so anytime day or night you see me online, feel free to message me. My 'official' office hours are on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 10:00am to 11:00am, but I am online quite a bit more than that.

3). Phone conversations. I am always available to schedule a phone conversation whenever you'd like. If you have a question you don't think can be solved over email or yahoo messenger, we can certainly chat over the phone. It's just like on campus office hours, but quite a bit more convenient for you since you don't have to come down to campus.

Journal Assignment Posted

Hello Class!

I have just posted Journal Assignments 1-4 to the "Projects" page on Blackboard. I am still giving Journal #5 some thought, but I will post it soon. Reply to this blog post or email me with questions about the assignment, if there are any.

I hope you all are having a fabulous evening!!!

Housekeeping Items

I have been enjoying your first round of posts so far - keep it up. You will notice a bit later on this week that I will start commenting on your posts. You can comment back on your blog if you'd like by also leaving a "comment", but you are still responsible for 3 posts to your personal blog answering questions, and 3 comments on different blogs during any given discussion week (1 comment on 3 different blogs).

Assignment #2
Please review Assignment #2, the Cultural Event Paper. This assignment will take a bit of planing since you are responsible for finding a cultural event to attend. As the members of the class send me suggestions, I will post them to this blog, and tag the item "Cultural Events". Please start looking through newspapers, and of course browse online to see what qualifying events would take place before the due date of the paper. I would like every person to find at least one qualifying event and email it to me so I can post it for the entire class to see.

Chapter Notes
In the middle of every week that we have a reading assignment, I will post Chapter notes to the "Handouts Page". Please go to that page and download the notes. Of course these notes are not a replacement for reading the chapters, they should be used in conjunction with each chapter you are reading. If you rely on the notes alone, there will be quite a bit of pertinent information you will miss in the chapters. The information you read in the chapters will help in your success in this course.