Communication

Philosophy Of Communication

What is Communication?

Communication is a word that can mean many different meanings but I think that a good definition of it is: Communication is the process of different thoughts, information and opinions through speech, signs or written format.  Communication is very hard for people to express to others because of all the complications involved, such as:

- Pieces of equipment not working

- Items not being there when they are needed

E.g. A mobile phone running out of battery in the middle of a conversation.  That would break up the communication between two people.

 

One thing that people do think about communication is that it is actually not that reliable, but that’s where a lot of people go wrong.  They think this because they don’t understand communication properly so they come to the conclusion that it is not that effective, but I can explain why that is wrong.  You first of all have to go back in history when there was nothing that you could use to communicate except for a piece of paper and a messenger pigeon.  If something bad happened that was life threatening and you needed assistance then you were most likely to get hurt because you didn’t have the aid of the communicating technology that we have today.  Also without communication, how would we do different things such as learn or buy food from the supermarkets?  We wouldn’t be able to, would we?  So if we teach people how to use technology, it would make it the most effective form of communication.

 

Different Forms of Communication

There are many different forms of effective communication for different purposes around the world.  These days the most common ways of communication is through technology, but before technology got advanced people used verbal and visual ways of communication.  Below are results of the most common way of reading communication from a person:

- 55% of reading communication is determined by body language and eye contact

- 38% by the tone of the voice

- 7% is of what they actually say

 

 

 

As I said before most people now use technology as a form of communication. They use this more because it is very quick and easy to use.  Some examples of communicating technology are mobile phones, emails, and the internet.

 

 

Forms Of Communication In The Subject Areas

Maths

Different forms of communication can be used for different subjects, some examples are:

-         If someone solves a problem or equation the best way to communicate the answer is orally because that way everyone can understand

-         Written communication can be used in maths to write different equations, algorithms and reports

-         Also different types of tools can be used to communicate answers such as a ruler can be a tool to take measurements, a calculator can be used to solve most equations or problems.

-         Symbols are used a lot in maths because first of all numbers are a form of communication.

-         Graphs and diagrams can be used to communicate different results or tallies

 

 History

-  A way of keeping communication that has been used in the history of the world has been just simple diaries and notebooks.  Some famous people throughout history who have been using diaries are Leonardo Da Vinci who took over 13,000 pages of notes all to do with his work in the his many subjects

-  Artefacts are being used still today to communicate different pieces of information about the lifestyle of people who lived up to centuries of years ago

-  Paintings and drawings have been used for ages because we can trace back to the paintings in Australia that were once on cave walls which communicated to other tribes about dreamtime stories

- Timelines are a major tool in history because it communicates to you about what events happened and when

 

 Geography

-  Maps are probably the most used tool in geography because it shows the information that is used in geography such as types of terrains and landforms

- Graphs and diagrams are used to communicate because they tell results of what animals and plants live in different places around the world

- Flags communicate a lot in geography because they not only tell you what country it belongs to but the colours on most flags represent the country      e.g. the aboriginal flag has three meanings the black on it means the people, the red means the land and the yellow represents the sun

- Tools in geography communicate a lot also especially on maps, these tools are scales, keys and legends, a north line.  They also tools when analysing a terrain they might use a GPS System, a thermometer and other tools

 

Similarities

What I have found after looking at all these different ways of communication in these three subjects is that all of them have one way of communication in common and that is that they all use some sort of symbol.  So basically if you look at maths they use numbers as a symbol and other symbols to change the number.  Also in History they find out the history of different symbols such as The Romans use Roman Numerals to communicate numbers.  Then in Geography they use symbols such as a scale which is a symbols which tells you a distance but they also have symbols on a map which can represent different items in real life.

 

Effective Forms of Communication

There are many different ways of communication and they are all debatable on which one of them is the most effective but here are my points of view: 

 

Technology as Communication

I think that technology as a form of communication has its pro’s and con’s, some of these are: 

Pros

-  It is very quick and is a lot more reliable because it sends the phone call or text message or email almost instantly.

- Technology keeps on advancing throughout time, so in a couple of years technology will be even more reliable then before.

- Compared to old ways of communication, (message and pigeon) it is more effective which makes technology a reliable way of communication.

 

Cons

- Technology can get faulty and can get viruses and bugs, this makes technology not so reliable

- Technology if broken can be very expensive to fix and can take a long time to rebuild, so that’s another way it can be unreliable

 

Written Communication

 

Pros

- Written communication is good because you can almost write on anything and it is being instantly recorded

- Written communication has provided us with ways of communication for over millions of years.  This has allowed us with different ways of finding out different information for us to use.

- Written communication is used on technology so really it is the basis of communication

 

Cons

- Written communication can be erased or lost quite easily so it isn’t as reliable as other forms of communication.

 

Oral Communication

 

Pros

- Oral communication is very effective when trying to get a point across at that moment in time.

- Oral communication is advancing because there are now so many languages through out the world.

 

Cons

- Oral communication isn’t very effective in the long term because it is proven that only 50% of what people actually say is remembered.

 

So all together I think that you can’t really say that one form of communication is better than the other because they both have there different pro’s and con’s. 

 

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