The Participation Blog

The New Rules

A course that I teach at Indiana University is, in part, taught online. Most of it is face to face but student demand, time constraints, and the times require some of it to be virtual, which is pretty incongruous when the subject matter is, essentially, interpersonal communication – don’t get me started. One of the IU profs handles the e-part; I make folks actually talk to each other and solve problems together. The fact remains, however, that the rules of communication are changing. What worked well back in the olden-days often doesn’t work well now. Attitudes, attention spans, interests, trust, tools and emotions are different, which means we need to communicate differently. Here’s a starter kit.