Business communications ePortfolio

By Oliver Beard

[olliebeard07]

Week 13 “Future strategies.”

Learning development over the semester has been a change compared to what high school was like.

Knowledge

Finding academic sources was one of the biggest changes. But part of that issue also could have been not having the textbooks which could have been used as an academic source for all assessments. The textbooks were not purchased early enough before we started lectures virtually since the library was always sold out when I went. So, a strategy for next semester if online lectures are not continuing, will be to purchase the textbooks as soon as possible.

Having knowledge of how to do a good oral presentation definitely helped for the assessments. I noticed that others in the lecture were missing some of those skills like having a balance between text and visual input which was pointed out by the lecturers.  

Skills

Learning how to incorporate academic sources into reports and essays. Having to adapt to a new standard of writing, writing in a more academic manner is something that will even after this semester, will still take some time to adjust to.

Isolation also prevented me from finding a balance between work and basketball which would have been running if not for isolation. Next semester when basketball hopefully starts back up, I will have to create a strategy to manage time well.

Some positives were though I found it pretty easy to interact with other in the group and to work with them. 

Attitudes/behaviours

Attitude wise I managed to allocate time to complete work and submit it on time. Rather then not finding motivation to do work and not starting the assignment until the day it is due. I attended every lecture with the exception of missing one due to not being aware of the schedule change as a result of a public holiday.  

However, my attitude may change once isolation finishes and a lot of distractions become available again. I will have to find a way to adapt once everything returns to normal.

[olliebeard07]

Week 11 “Managing assessments.”

Reflecting on how well assessments have been managed. Time management for completing the assessments has for the most part been good. Areas for improvement revolve around Finding academic articles. Finding academic articles relevant to the topics, and with enough information to talk in a comprehensive manner, has been one of the more prominent challenges. Normally academic articles found only have one or two usable lines which broadly address the topic without any in depth information about the topic. The next issue has been finding a balance between talking using the academic sources, and using information gathered from other sources and common knowledge. In some cases, the topic was misinterpreted and so information provided on the topic was not always what was looked for in the assessment. However, this being the first year attempting literature reviews and incorporating academic sources into reports and essays. Hopefully this feedback can be used to do well next semester.

[olliebeard07]

Week 9 “Understanding and utilising feedback.”

The feedback received on this reflective portfolio helped point out areas of improvement for my entries. Starting with pointing out numerous grammar errors that need correction. So, the first step will be combing over all the entries to correct those issues. Second thing pointed out was the lack of artefacts to go with the entries. However, I was given some ideas for that during the progress review. Possibly using photos from basketball and/or coaching. Other than that, the feedback offered positive comments on the language used and the content of the entries. Not sure how to feel about the process as of this moment. Not used to writing reflections like this, but feeling positive about the activity so far based on the feedback given.

[olliebeard07]

Week 7 “Self-management: motivation and resilience”

I feel like I have created a good balance of my study and external interests. I have got into a rhythm of waking up, doing work up until about 2-3 in the afternoon and then take the rest of the afternoon off on days we do not have lectures. But my current system will not work once isolation is finished and all my basketball and coaching start up again.

I have remained motivated by doing a little work every day rather than doing a lot of work days before assessments are due so that I am not feeling stressed or getting sick of the work. Strategies I have used involve taking a day to see what assessments I need to get started on. And start allocating what I am going to do each day. for example, Monday ill find all the academic sources I am going to use, go through them and put all the useful citations I can use in a word document. Then Tuesday ill start researching regular websites and things and start the first and second body paragraph etc. Just doing a little bit each day so I do not do a lot of work in one day. I will have to change my system in future for when all my basketball starts up again because I will lose the weekends. So, I will have to allocate more time during the week to do work. 

[olliebeard07]

Week 5 “Teamwork”.

One of the things our group did well was communicate. as soon as we had established our group, we created a group chat on social media to provide a platform for discussion about the assignment outside of lecture hours. We also established a system of leaving comments on each other’s slides to provide feedback and answer questions. We were all clear on our themes and made sure everyone knew what you were going to say to prevent clashes and repetition. allocating roles went smoothly and quickly no one was against doing the role they were allocated. 

Time Management could have been better. We did not end up finding the time to do a rehearsal as a group and spent a most part of the day before finishing up our slides and references.

Through the group chat we were able to motivate each other to get work done. It takes leadership skills to be able to motivate others to work, as stated by Al Rahbi, Khalid and Khan(2017)  “correlate the leadership styles with team motivation include an understanding of the style expected to hold true for its importance in employee performance and retention in the long term.” by (Al Rahbi, Khalid and Khan 2017). In this case we are motivated by the comments made by others because we feel obligated to work hard and do well because the results of your work also reflect those of your teammates and you do not want to let them down. For an activity and university environment there is no need for a dictator type leadership style. need to take a more democratic approach to achieve true cohesion by being friendly and adapting with your teammates rather than telling them how you think things should be done 

The fact that we did not rehearse reflected in our peer feedback where are lowest graded attribute was team cohesion reflected in the presentation. In future a priority will be establishing time to rehearse as a team. The other weakness outlined by the peer review was our ability to speak clearly and be understood. Delivering an oral presentation virtually possess its challenges with variables such as internet connection and microphone quality which could have affected how we were perceived.

[olliebeard07]

Week 2 “Starting out”.

When I first found out about sports media at Holmesglen and decided to do it, I only visualised pursuing the media coverage of professional basketball. Basketball being the sport I have played since I was 7 years old and being the only sport, I have vast knowledge of. Until I was told of other student’s experiences, who went on to work in sports they had no knowledge of and yet were still doing well and enjoying their work. Originally, I would have thought you would need vast knowledge of the sport in order to properly and successfully cover the sport in the media. Opening my eyes to the fact that it does not matter if I have knowledge of the sport to work in that industry starting out. This has encouraged me to take a more open approach to the course especially when the time comes to do our internships in the third year rather than just tunnel vision basketball.

I also gained insight about the more political side of sports media. I learned it’s not just about covering the accomplishments and breaking news in sport, but the politics of it as well such as the developing role of women in both professional sports and sports media. it is a deeper concept then I had originally thought that will require more than just good knowledge of sport and good people skills to make it in this line of work.