Group Blog 4

As we wrap up the semester, it's interesting to look back on how we've changed our views, thanks to both our event and the class. Our group project happened at Madison Elementary on Friday, October 10, and it definitely required us to communicate with everyone. The diversity was widespread as the kids came from different family types (single moms, nuclear families, and even grandparents watching them), different races, different economic groups, and different cultures. They all gathered in the gymnasium to paint pumpkins, play games, earn prizes and just have a fun night as families. As a whole, we identify diversity in more ways than we may have originally seen it and caused us to think more about how we're communicating with others that are diverse from ourselves. Often times we think about diversity in terms of our peers and people we interact with on a regular basis but as witnessed at the family fun night there was a lot of diversity in children based on their ages, attitudes and maturity levels.

After doing our mini “experiment” with our computers, we've also had a chance to reflect on communication modes, particularly non-traditional ones (such as facebook). We began to consider how an increase in use of those has not only lowered our interaction with others, but probably also reduced our interpersonal communication skills. Another aspect of our mini experiment has to do with mass media and how it is related to communication ethics. The mass media has a a lot of power and some times persuades people to think differently. Although ethical decisions should be use in every kind of media, it is not.

Another topic discussed in class was about disabilities and communication ethics. Disability is a hard to deal with sometimes because most people’s first instinct is to kind of stare at the person that is disabled and then feel sorry for them and want to help them out. When in reality they just want to be treated just like a “normal” able-bodied person.

Another interesting point we found was when working with the blog, we had realized how one another is able to do things and reacts to certain situations. We have learned that you have to be fully present in order it be able to deal with certain situations. We feel that ethic of care is really important since we wanted the children to know that we do care about everyone of them, and that we are not going to be picking a certain one out of the group.

Here are two pictures that relate to our blog and what we have discussed in class.

The first pictures relates to our discussion on disabilities and communication ethics. This picture is a good representation of ethics relates to disabilities.


The second picture is depicts many people of different culture holding hands and celebrating their differences. The caption on this picture describes how are group feels about communication ethics and diversity.



While writing this blog our group found some really informative websites.The first website has a lot of information on disabilities that could help make better ethical decisions. The second website is an informative article about social networking.

http://www.disabilityinfo.gov/digov-public/public/DisplayPage.do?parentFolderId=500

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/technology/social-networking.html

Group Blog 3

Our Fall Fun Night at Madison Elementary took place on Friday, October 10, and it definitely required us to communicate with everyone. The diversity was widespread as the kids came from different family types (single moms, nuclear families, and even grandparents watching them), different races, different economic groups, and different cultures. They all gathered in the gymnasium to paint pumpkins, play games, earn prizes and just have a fun night as families.

That being said, it was the parents, not the kids, who demonstrated their differences. The kids acted as kids would act; making it was difficult to notice differences in them (beyond extrinsic properties). However, there were definite differences in how the parents acted. For example, one parent continuously said their child’s number at the operator, trying to get him to call it, while at the cupcake walk trying to get their child win. They became angry when he ignored her, and continued to draw numbers.

As far as our group’s diversity and communication challenges, we have met the challenges laid before us and overcome a lot of obstacles. We have dealt with varying opinions and participation methods, and as of now, relative to when the group was first formed we have come together with various roles. Although once a role is taken it is difficult to change, a few group members have been able to adapt and have now taken different roles when certain needs arise. Our group has been composed of a very diverse group of individuals with different time commitments and interests, and we feel it has worked to our advantage, even if challenging, to have such varying opinions and viewpoints. Our group’s view of the relationship between communication ethics and diversity changed thus far by seeing how kids interact with one another. Since some of us were not able to be in attendance for the event, we were not able to really see the connection between both. However, we have seen the connection for us on the ability to pull everything off for the night. Having our own ideas and being so very different was an obstacle, but it made for a well-rounded event for the children at Madison Elementary—which is what we wanted in the end.

In consideration of the ideas we have been discussing in class our group has seemingly been affected by a couple of the terms. After reading about the ethnic of care and the doctor/Mr. Tabrizi situation we have learned the ethnic of care is one of the best ways to communicate in diverse societies. Ethics of care can be defined as a response with empathy, narrative, or identification to the other. The ethic of care is a good way to communicate with other people. Because you consider the other, the other feels like you really care, because you do. Another concept such as the second principle of dialogical ethics states that both participants must be fully present in the engagement, meaning that nothing should be occupying your time other than the other person in which you are communicating with. This is very true for our group in that we have a tendency to have laptops open and other things going through our minds when meeting together for this project. In order for us to be more successful as a group and communicate better we need to apply this second principle and focus on the group as a whole.


This picture represents what our group is learning. Diversity is not just numbers of people reported to the census, diversity is everywhere and needs to be embraced.

http://www.helium.com/items/82975-teaching-children-ethics

http://www.slc.edu/cdi/Values_Go_to_School.php

We chose these links because we see them fitting with ethics and values for children in school, and find them to be pertinent to this blog as we just finished our event.

Group Blog 2

Put-Put golf is one of our planned events at Fall Family Fun Night.
We think the children will really enjoy this game.

In nearing our event, which will take place Friday, Oct. 10 from 630 to 8 p.m. at Madison Elementary School in Winona, Minn., we have compiled a list of events in which the children at Madison Fall Fun Night will take part in:
• Put, Put Golf
• Mini-Basketball Shoot Out
• Dessert Walk
• Fishing Game
• Sucker Prize Tree
• Bracelet and Necklace Making
• Face Painting
• Bozo Bucket Game
• Pumpkin Painting
• Prize Bag Creation
• Football Toss
• Limbo

We tried to give a vast amount of activities for everyone to do and have fun with, since it is a family night; however, we didn’t aim for the games to be gender specific—we wanted everyone to be able to take part in everything and not feel that it was a “boys” or “girls” thing to do. Also, we have gotten prizes for the children’s games, so that when they play, the will get something for playing. We are also busy getting supplies for it too, like face paint and bags and decorations so they can put their prizes in a bag.


Our viewpoints on communication ethics and diversity have changed since the beginning of this project because we have not only had more interaction with one another in trying to create activities for everyone, as well as communication between each one of us. We’re all very different people with very different opinions and have had to come together to accomplish piecing together this fun night so the other group we are working with just has to think about the night of the event—we’re the ones doing all the preparation and the other group is hosting the event. We’ve realized the relationship between and diversity has changed because we now see children are very diverse and will act differently. We needed to create many different activities for them; since they are not alike they will all want different activities. By learning different theories, our ideas on how to communicate may have not changed, but the way we think about other people’s communication and its effect on others have changed we believe.

This picture shows a group working on a project.
This group shows effective communication skills.

As far as the more recent approaches to communication ethics we have studied, we feel that all three aspects have affected our approach to communicate in such a diversity society and aspect as far as this project is concerned. Discourse ethics, as touched in the chapter on duties, speaks of norms (rules agreed upon by society); which we all use day in and day out to get through certain situations, such as deciding on appropriate activities based upon age groups and parental consent. Consequences, as mentioned through the term utilitarianism and having to find the greatest good for the greatest number of people, have affected our decisions as we have had to think of how to go about the activities so the children (and their families) will want to keep playing and not get bored with what we have to offer. Relationships are also important to approaching certain ethical standpoints. By learning the difference between I-Thou and I- It relationships, with I-Thou having a desire to be attentive to and present for each other and I-It involving not fully listening to what another has to say because of focusing on one’s own thoughts and feelings; relationships could be made better by trying to understand and enact on the I-Thou more. The children will want to have relationships with not only us, but also their peers and families, so we want to make sure everything is appropriate, everyone has a very good time, and give us the chance to be a good role models when communicating with them by really listening to what they have to say.

These are a couple links to help understand I-Thou relationships and ethical communications a bit better.
Also, the pictures shown above (1) represent a game to be played at Fall Fun Night and (2) a group communicating with one another... two very key pictures to give a visual understand to what we have been talking about in the blog above.

http://www.shanemjones.com/I-ThouRelationships.html
http://www.globalethics.org/

Group Blog 1

As a group, we chose to collaborate our efforts with another group in class to work with Madison Elementary School and their Family Fun Night on October 10, 2008. The Family Fun Night will take place at the Madison Elementary School gymnasium in Winona, MN, and is open to all students and families from kindergarden and up from the elementary school.

Our project with Madison Elementary relates to this course on communication ethics and diversity because of the age of children we’ll be working with in the end product, the different ethics and viewpoints each of us has as individuals and will bring to the entire group, and the different demographics that may come with working within this elementary school.

Obviously, as with anything across cultural lines, there are differences in morals. When a person assumes about a culture, they make a judgment causing either a good or bad reaction. Each person has an idea of what is right and wrong, realized by where they lived and how they were brought up. It is much easier to know more about other cultures, and know other people’s moral character to understand everything. People assume all of the time. Whether it is right or wrong they assume that if you are different from them, you don't value the same things, and often times it takes a negative connotation. Because of that people may choose to communicate more, less, or differently. Assumptions of character differ from cultures all around, because actions and language differ from culture to culture. As an example, many cultures show affection when meeting someone or saying hi, but some cultures may not shake hands, because their hand is not clean/ good enough to touch someone else's. In the United States it is everyday culture to greet someone with a handshake. This is just one culture difference followed by many, many others depending on where someone resides in the world.

http://www.adl.org/issue_education/hateprejudice/Prejudice3.asp
http://pbskids.org/rogers/parentsteachers/theme/1581_t_art.html