This course is highly technologically focused. All of your course materials will appear here on this website, and in your classroom (Workplace) on OldPuebloMOO (OPM). You will be meeting once a week on OPM, the first two weeks from the the USB 311 lab, then primarily from wherever you are comfortable. That means we will be meeting "virtually" for about half our classtime. All of your assignments will be turned in through the MOO and will be online (we can talk about making them confidential if you don't feel comfortable with them being publicly available), and your final project will be an online environment on the MOO.
The purpose of this course will be for you to become comfortable using, and analyzing, various forms of professional communication. You will be analyzing what the implications of how language is used to construct professional relationships, and you will spend some time thinking about the nature of work. Over the course of the semester you will write and be graded on:
Every week, you will be reading articles and chapters about professional communication. Those readings will primarily be available on line or in reserve in the library.
For this class, you will be designing your own workplace (as a class). This workplace will be a "virtual environment", brought into existence on OPM. At the beginning of the semester, I will function as an individual starting up an organization, but for the rest of the class, it will be the class' responsibility to determine the make-up, direction, function, and operations of that organization. You will set our mission, create our job descriptions, construct "departments" or workgroups (however you decide the office should function), and design the office space. Your final project will be your workgroup's design of your space and anticipated projects/activities for the organization.
The proposal and final project are worth 50% of your grade. That means that half of this class depends on group activities and your ability to utilize communication to create a professional group. I will be asking you to analyze the various ways groups become structured, what the ideologies are behind group activities, and what the implications of certain group structures are.
This is one of the only times most of us will have the opportunity to completely shape our work environments and seek alternatives to "business as usual." You will gain a good deal of experience with professional communication. My personal goal is that you will be able to shape the world of work that you choose to embark on after this class; that you are able to transform that world if you think it needs transforming, and above all, to be actively engaged in the communication that shapes the way you will be spending your life.
contact me at any time if you have questions, concerns, comments, complaints: danika@u.arizona.edu