Факультеты и центры >> Языковой центр

Осень/Fall 2000

INTERCULTURAL ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION

Fall semester 2000

Dr. TyAnna K. Herrington
tyanna.herrington@lcc.gatech.edu

Dr. Yuri P.Tretyakov
yuri@eu.spb.ru

The course is designed to introduce students to the types of documents and writing abilities required by their future professions. The course focuses on understanding both visual and verbal rhetoric in application to the analysis and development of documents within the technical communication genre, most pointedly on the proposal and the technical report. The special features of the course are development of documents in a multicultural environment as well as collaborative research.

Text: Bennett, Milton, Ed. Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication

Upon completing the course, students will be able to do the following:

• analyze communication situations and audiences and use appropriate strategies to advance stated goals,
• collect and report information thoroughly and accurately,
• interpret factual information using logical reasoning and effectively organize and display

• the organizational scheme,
• recognize and employ commonly used graphics in oral and written presentations,
• explain and use the following basic techniques: definition, description of mechanism, systems, process and abstract concepts, classification and summary

Please Note:

• This course is very challenging and time-consuming. The material is not difficult to learn, but does require effort. Consider your schedule and the effort you're willing to expend before continuing!

• Examples from books or organization materials are merely examples and should be treated as such. You must use your own judgment concerning aspects of writing that make a document effective. Do not simply rely on another communicator's work as the "right" way to create a document - you may have found an ineffective example!

• Any student who, because of a disabling condition, may require some special arrangements in order to meet course requirements should contact the instructor as soon as possible so that the necessary accommodations can be made.

• resume - 20%
• Proposal - 20%
• analytical report - 20%
• World Wide Web (or oral presentation) document - 10%

• class and collaborative participation (including participation in WebBoard discussions and memos) - 30%

Note that we will supply more detailed explanations and project descriptions for all class assignments as a basis of course content. Please don't hesitate to ask questions at any time.

Resume

You will submit a resume to be used to introduce yourselves, your expertise, and your interests to your Russian classmates. You should refer to our online discussions and the Icarus site at http://icarus.lcc.gatech.edu to prepare your assignment.

Due 25 Sept. 2000

Proposal

You will submit hard copy proposals to pursue your plan for analyzing issues in cross-cultural, digital communication as they pertain to your subject area interests, and to describe your plans for developing the hard copy analytical report and website. You should produce individual proposals in memo format.

Due 3/15/00

Analytical Report

You will submit a hard copy collaborative formal report of the results of your analysis of communication issues, and your experiences in real-life testing and discussion of these issues with your Russian classmates. You should include an accompanying memo pointing clearly to your individual contributions to the report.

You should use all the information we cover in class as well as research that you may gather from the library, the Internet, and from Georgia Tech colleagues and faculty, and from your Russian classmates as a basis for your analysis. You should make use of all of the information that you have created for other assignments throughout the course semester.

You should remember from the start that the objective of the analytical report is a comparative, multifaceted, and multicultural analysis of a very recent phenomenon in electronic communication from the vantage point of its use, its cultural and artistic significance as well as its effectiveness/efficiency.

You must use formal report format. The body of the document (the analysis) should provide the factual information required to explain the basis for your evaluations and analytical report and website goals (providing any supporting citations to develop your own credibility as experts in this area). You should also include a specific analysis section that provides a synthesis of the information you gathered concerning your subject area issue as it relates to general issues in communication covered in class. You may conclude with a recap of your steps of analysis in the conclusion.

Due 27 Nov. 2000

Website

You will collaboratively produce an audience-appropriate, accurate, appealing, visually accessible, and efficiently functioning W3 site that reports the results of your class research, intercultural communication with your Russian classmates and joint analysis of communication issues. Please provide an accompanying memo that points to your individual sections in the site and your contributions to production of the site. Due 4 Dec. 2000

"A" documents:

• follow the instructions in the description of assignments
• are reader-centered in tone and visual design
• are clearly and simply worded
• provide enough information to meet the purpose of the document without burdening the reader with that which is irrelevant
• have a visual design that aids reader-accessibility
• have no grammar, mechanical, or spelling errors

Students who wish to improve grades on assignments should submit document drafts for review before they are graded. Once grading is completed, changes in grades are highly unlikely.

Strict adherence to project deadlines is mandatory. Late assignments can be reduced by one grade letter per day late.

Please note that many of our classes will be conducted in virtual environments, primarily through the use of WebBoard communications software. We'll also meet face-to-face during the semester and join your American classmates at the Georgia Institute of Technology online to share class discussion and collaborate on common topics.

The same level of participation is required in virtual settings as in face-to-face classes. For every hour of scheduled class, you must devote an hour to virtual class. Your indication of participation in virtual class is, of course, dependent upon your willingness to send posts. It is imperative that you log into WebBoard at least every class day to learn what is expected of you in class and what you're expected to do toward development of your assignments.

1-3 AMERICANS

GT students start with article reading until the EU students are in class.

4 AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

The students should be able to "socialize" in a relaxed way first, then gradually move into more serious topics for discussion. They start off by introduce themselves, tell what they're studying and why and then maybe have them talk about what they like to do for fun, how they spend their free time, etc. Russians and Americans write resumes.

RUSSIANS

Russians will also have to squeeze into this time acquiring some computer skills, especially WebBoard. Russian students begin reading Barnlund or Hall during this week

5 AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

Assignment: Come up with a definition of culture and multiculturalism.

Students read Barnlund or Hall and start answering more pointed questions, for instance, about their perceptions of the Russian and American cultures-both of their own cultures and of each others.

Assignment: An exercise in cultural analysis.

Each class comes up with a photo or some other visual representation of their own cultures. This part would be done among students in the GT class and students in the EU class separately to start with. As part 2, both classes could look at each others' representations and discuss what the images mean to them and what they think they might be representing about the other culture. For part 3, the EU and GT classes could talk to each other about the representations they chose and explain why they think what they chose is representative. So we start with self-analysis of visual/cultural representation, then go to analysis of an outside representation of another culture, then discuss the differences between one analysis and the other. Students start to learn a little about each others' cultures while they're also going through some exercises in how to analyze information.

6 AMERICANS

Assignment: Submit hard copies of individual proposals in memo format pursue individual students' plans for analyzing issues in cross-cultural, digital communication as they pertain to their subject area interests, and to describe plans for developing the hard copy analytical report and website.

RUSSIANS

Assignment: Choose topics for research based on the analysis of the websites.

AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

Assignment: Choose material presented in web site http://www.postcards.ru/ and http://www.bluemountain.com/ for analysis, form groups and select group leaders.

7 AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

Assignment: Provide a proposal of what you are planning to do for the class analysis. For this purpose, each group comes up with its own proposal, whish is later incorporated into the class proposal written by group leaders. Ideally, joint Russian-American proposals are developed at this stage.

8-9 AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

Assignment: Provide a progress report in memo format.

10-12 AMERICANS and RUSSIANS

Assignment: Provide group reports. Students on both sides continue analyzing websites in groups and produce group reports.

13 AMERICANS.

Assignment: Provide the class analytical report making use of material sent by the Russians as well as individual achievement reports in memo format

AMERICANS and RUSSIANS.

Assignment: Provide individual achievement reports in memo format.

RUSSIANS

Assignment: Wrap up work on group reports, send them to Americans and begin discussion of American reports and work on oral presentations

14 AMERICANS

Assignment: Provide a web-site.

RUSSIANS

Assignment: Participate in mini-conference, make oral presentations.