The Power of Communication
"To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others."
Tony Robbins
With parent teacher conferences this week, I think communication is an excellent topic to tackle in our journal blogs. Effective communication between parents and teachers, teachers and students, students and parents is essential if we wish to get the best possible education for ourselves. I believe that there are two hurdles to effective communication. The first is the fact that people just don't communicate enough. Using technology, I believe this can be effectively improved through tools which allows communication to take place more easily. For example, texting makes communication with others much easier to do and once using it, you probably wonder how anybody learned to live without it. I know that I personally have more contact with friends who even live across the country simply because I know at any given moment that I am thinking of them, they are a quick text away. The second is the focus of the quote above. We are all different in the way we perceive the world. This makes one person's reality quite different than another person's reality. Since we are shaped by our life experiences, so too is our version of reality. In order to help bridge this gap between realities, we must try to understand other's point of view and perspectives. Empathy is an important skill to hold in this situation.
For this week's journal, I would like you to do the following: FIRST log in to your edmodo and find the link that tells you as a student how to get your PARENTS to join the edmodo group. SHARE this with your parents/guardian because extra credit is going to be given this quarter if they sign up. The second thing I would like you to do is teach them how to join the remind101 notification group for parents. The directions are on my weebly main home page (under Parent Links & Information). This too will be worth extra credit for the quarter. When finished, write for five minutes minimum on the importance of communication both with parents using technology tools such as these and with others as discussed in the blog entry above. PLEASE KEEP THE SAME JOURNAL BLOG ALL YEAR. Do not start a new journal blog.