My group and I were recently given an assignment for class. In addition to the assignment, our one instruction to working on it was that we could not speak about the project face to face or over the phone... we had to do it electronically.
There are more drawbacks to this then you would think!
We decided to use email to commuicate easily, however, you quickly see that you are limited to when people can actullay check their email as to how quick you will be able to get a response. Then, replies can get redundant if people don't remember to "reply to all." Questions will be end up being answered multiple times and concerns expressed more than once.
We also communicated over Skype. This was a disaster (at least for our group!) Our 4 group members and our professor were all scheduled to Skype at one time. Prior to this, a few of us had talked on Skype to get used to it. Well, we figured out that with more than 3 people in a Skype conversation there is a severe echo if everyone doesn't have a microphone and headphones. Although the test run sounded fine, we were unable to understand each other when we had the actual group conversation.
Another down fall of Skype is that you end up talking over each other and then missing what someone is saying before you realize that you are talking at the same time. So there was a lot of repeating and apologizing!
Although technology usually makes our world more easy to navigate, we have learned that have no face to face communications is actually not part of the "easy navigation!"
The second image "Jaleel 2" is the original version of the photo I took. It shows this young man in perspective of what he is doing, his event is the 110 hurdles. He is nearing the finish line and he has the determination in his eye to win. He is the middle ground of the photo while the hurdles are the foreground and the bleachers are the background.
