Day 2: Communication

If literacy is a combination of reading and writing skills, then how much broader is the concept of communication?

In one of Barb's presentations today, she summarized the three requirements to communicate effectively:

1. common language
2. joint attention
3. a communication partner

I personally encountered the need for a common language just yesterday as I sat at a dinner table where four people could effortlessly switch from English to German, while myself and another were captive in the limited land of just English. I wanted to belong, I wanted to share in the conversation, I wanted to understand and contribute, too. But my lack of language stopped me. I did not have any way to share my thoughts in German, so I had to wait for someone else to switch back to the language I could understand and use. That experience was short-lived, but insightful. How much more difficult for a child lacking the labels, any labels, any context?

Joint attention is also needed. How many times has a frustrated teen exclaimed, "but you're not listening to me!" Communication takes more than just passively being present, all of the people need to be actively listening. It needs to be an active, engaged process on all sides. And if there are barriers, "simpler is better" so that the process of the activity of sharing communication is the focus of the time, not a technology, not an assist, but the shared messages.

Finally, a communication partner is needed. A partner chooses to share with another. Perhaps it is to share ideas, to share knowledge, to share feelings. The best partnerships are balanced, all may not share equal abilities, but "competence is assumed", all persons in the communication circle are respected. That respect is shared through words, body language, tone of voice...

Of course, there's always "Hand Talk", and I resort to that more often than most. I wouldn't have much to say if I couldn't gesture...






Barb has asked us to list at least ten modes oersonf communication. Communication is such a critical and complex process. My list of those I have personally encountered starts with traditional modes:

• conversation
• storytelling
• music and song
• print books
• telephone
• paper letter
  
• lecture
• telegraph and Morse code
• typewriter
• telex
• fax machine
• visual art (in all its wonderful and varied mediums!)
• performance art (dance being my personal favourite)

and then moves on to more contemporary

• computer keyboards
• electronic piano keyboards
• cell phone
• eBooks
• IM Instant Message
• Texting (critical to my keeping in touch with my two 20-something children!)
• Blogs (very new to me)
• LMS like Moodle
  
• surveys & polls

And I'm still waiting to get my hands on an iPad and/or iTouch ...not to mention Captain Kirk's communicator and Scottie's transporter so that I can be in two places at once!