Survivor Blog #6

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In this episode of survivor it seemed to be center around trust within the tribes. To start off in the yellow tribe at the beginning of the episode Dales daughter was voted off in the previous episode and now he is worried that he will be next. Over in the blue tribe, they are continuing to starve from hunger as they do not have any rice left to properly feed the tribe members. This is frustrating for the members who were previously on the yellow tribe as they had food to feed their tribe because they rationed it out properly and this shows how the Blue tribe did not and they were eating more which could be a factor of why the tribe was doing so well in the previous challenges since they may have had more energy and strength do to eating more than the yellow tribe has. In order for the blue tribe to get more food they had to plead and give back all their items that they have won in the previous challenges and basically start off from scratch. This upsetting Jeremy as he could have lasted longer with barely to no food and believes that one of the future challenges may have been more food or equipment for hunting and would not have had to plead and give back the items they did for more food.

The blue tribe wins the first challenge and the reward was a BBQ for the tribe, Natalie from the blue tribe volunteers to go to exile island. Jeremy has been a bit distant from the tribe. I believe this has to do with him focusing more on his personal goals of getting father in the game vs. working as a team and focusing on tribe goals. This also can have to do with him being upset with the tribe doing the exchange for more food. Where he believes the tribe could have lasted a little longer before pleading for food. Julie begins to question leaving the game as she doesn’t think she can handle being on this island for much longer. Jeremy tries to convince her and bring up her hopes that she can do this and last longer as he needs her and her support to help further him into the game. He is doing this out of self interests and not really because he is concerned for her. He knows that she will need to leave before him but doesn’t believe that time is now.

 

The blue tribe wins the second challenge as well which means that the yellow tribe will have to attend tribal council. The problem in this tribe is that the majority of the tribe is made up of loved ones and that makes it difficult to vote someone off as no one wants to vote off their own ones. This influences sub-alliances with loved ones within the tribe and that breaks down the strength of the tribe overall. I believe what is going to happen for future episodes is that the ones in the tribe without loved ones are going to be the ones voted off the tribe first and then once the only thing left is loved ones the tribe members with their loved ones will all gang up with each other as like a couple vs. couple thing and once couples break apart due to being voted off the partner of the loved one that was previously voted off would be next and it would become a continuous cycle. To show proof of this in the tribal council Dale was voted off who did not have a loved one in the tribe as his daughter was on the yellow tribe and was voted off.

Episode 6

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All throughout this season, all members have been using vocal communication to work together as a tribe. However, in the past two episodes, I’ve noticed a particular member quiet himself down, and express himself nonverbally. After the tribe merger, Jeremy lost most of the alliances he had made within his initial tribe. Many original Coyopa members became part of Hunahpu. These original Coyopa members all brought with them their alliances with one another, and as Josh reunited with his boyfriend, Jeremy realized that he we now outnumbered. As such, he expressed some worry and fear that he would become a bigger target to be voted off the show.

I’ve noticed that throughout this episode of Survivor, Jeremy from the Hunahpu tribe expressed a lot of nonverbal communication towards his tribe. For example, in the beginning of this episode, Drew is seen talking to Jeremy about the lack of food that their tribe has. While this is happening, Jeremy is dead silent. When the host arrives and explains that they will be given a bag of rice in exchange for all their comfort items, the tribe complies. Although Jeremy follows suit, he is show to not be talking at all. His arms are crossed over his chest and even from his face alone, you see an expression of frustration and annoyance with the rest of the tribe. When he talks alone to the camera, he uses an angry and upset tone of voice, as he describes how his tribe should not have made the trade of comfort for food. He firmly believes that it was a bad decision, and is proven right when a storm comes in for the next few nights. Throughout this time, he is extremely expressive nonverbal and it seems like a scowl is etched onto his face. Even when he is trying to be supportive with Julie, his words are short and blunt. It is easy to see just how disappointed Jeremy is with his tribe. Although he conceals his emotions and thoughts verbally, his nonverbal actions explain the truth of what he believes.

Survivor Blog Post #6

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At the beginning of the sixth episode of survivor, the Hunahpuh tribe met with Jeff in order to receive a new bag of rice because they had run extremely short. However, in order for them to earn the rice, Jeff requires them to trade in their comfort items which would leave them vulnerable in rainy weather. In individual interviews, Jeremy expresses his frustration with the tribe’s decision to trade in the comfort items for food. Although Jeremy was one of the original Hunahpuh tribe members and was one of the reasons that the new tribe ran out of food, he fails to consider this when speaking in his interviews. In his discussion, he does not use plural and collective pronouns which is a key component of communication according to “team talk.” For example, explains that “the brainiacs gave the tarp away” and that “they are so dumb.” Jeremy not only places the blame on the rest of the team, but fails to acknowledge that he did not try to stop their actions in any way and therefore is equally responsible for the results of the trade.

In another situation, Julie uses verbal communication in order to express her feelings to the tribe. After the tribe has given up their comfort items, Julie complains throughout the rainy night claiming that she has reached her breaking point. She verbally expresses to the group her discomfort with the situation and her internal feelings of doubt and regret. That same night she explains, ” I don’t know if I can do this.” Through her verbal communication and obvious display of emotions, Julie sends a message to the rest of the group that she is beginning to question her place within the competition.

According to the text, men and women have distinct differences in their manner of communicating nonverbally. Within the Coyopa tribe, Missy and Baylor display nonverbal behavior very common for women as a gender. For example, they continually use expressive movements, displays of emotion, as well as facial expressions to communicate feelings with one another. They also tend to be very affectionate with one another and touch each other when in conversation. Men, on the other hand, tend to distance themselves more from one another, seem less emotionally involved, and touch each other less. However, in the Hunahpuh tribe Josh and Reed appear to the the exception to this rule. Throughout the competition they smile often, hug one another and other teammates, as well as clearly display their emotions. After winning the challenge for his tribe, Reed began to cry in front of everyone, communicating to his team that he is proud that he was able to contribute to the success of the tribe. The couple tend to also interact within intimate space with one another as well as the other tribe members when in conversation. Most men would not react to such an accomplishment in this manner, but would rather withdraw emotional connection from the situation and internalize their feelings. Josh and Reed’s unusual display of nonverbal communication may perhaps be helping them achieve the respect of the female participants and also be the reason they are doing so well in the competition.

A Million Dollar Walk

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In this weeks episode the two teams finally merge into one team and it is every man for themselves. Which means no one is safe! Old alliances face the new alliances which question where people stand within the tribe.

Some of the nonverbal communication I saw this week was mostly with the team members eyes. Their eyes tend to get really wide or really narrow when someone is talking them and as the person is speaking to them they are thinking of which alliance to go with. Julie on the other hand wasn’t communicating at all, she was avoiding the entire tribe as well as hoarding food and then lying about no having anything to eat.

There was also some body language that people were giving to others. For example; Josh and Jeremy they hate each other and they are both trying to get two alliances together in order to get the other man out; and when they walk passed each other their body language changes as if they are trying to show that they are both the “chef” of the tribe and that the other man must go.

In the end Julie decided to leave the game. After three long exhausting weeks of being away from her loved ones she finally cracked. She went behind everyones backs and told the host of the games that she was done and is giving up on the Million dollars. With  Julie’s volunteer of leaving the show there was no tribal council that night which saved someone from going home.

My First Post

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This is awesome.

Hello world!

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Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Data/Analytics in K-12 Education

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I am at a conference about online learning in the 21st Century, and one of the common themes in many of the sessions is the importance of analytics, often looked at as the quantitative data that statisticians can mine through site clicks.  The thinking on clickthrough metrics is that by seeing how students interact with the learning management system, faculty and instructional designers can better create learning environments for students to master.  The flip-side is an adherence to design-mandated learning, an inorganic and forced process rather than an organic and haphazard experience.

I am interested in your thoughts on data analytics and how they affect learning, both from what you see at your schools and what you are reading here and other places.  For a starting point on the topic, here are some articles.  Choose at least one to read and utilize it in a blog post on your site.

Design Patterns & the Coming Revolution in Course Design – Mike Caulfield

Data Analytics Tools in U.S. K-12 – Vivek Murali

11 Ways to Make Data Analytics Work for K-12 – Irving Hamer

New Media Consortium 2014 in Data Analytics for K-12 – Wiki

Getting Real, Your Conflict Style & Experience

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Write an analysis of how your dominant and less dominant conflict styles affect your leadership abilities and outcomes.  How might using a different conflict style improve the outcomes?  Provide specific examples to support your argument.

The questionnaire results labeled my conflict style as collaborative. Which I agree with, when faced with a conflict I always try to get both parties to work things out, where they can come up with a solution that benefits them both and not just one. I feel that it makes a difference in the way I perform a leadership position when I use a collaborative form of conflict style. Mainly because through the use of this style I seek out to get everybody involved in the outcome of the situations, and I try to keep things from being one sided. If I were to use a different conflict style I think that the outcome of the situation would be completely different. For example, if I were to use my less dominant style which is avoiding, I wouldn’t seek out to get everybody in the same page. I would simply “avoid” the whole situation and hope that it plays and gets resolved on its own. My thoughts would probably be why put any time towards resolving the situation if eventually things will turn out the way they have to. However, if i were to use a different conflict style to help improve the outcomes aside from the one that I use, it would be maybe compromising and only in specific situations. For example when dealing with a small group of children.  Everything would be a lot easier if we picked our own battles. Basically what this means is that its a lot easier to make the children think that you are  giving them something in return for their participation when the reality is different rather than arguing with them or trying to make them see your way (we can all be stubborn in our own way) which can sometimes make things more difficult. In situations like this compromising would be a good way to resolve those types of conflicts.

Describe an actual conflict you had with a family member, roommate, or coworker

  1. Describe the positions and interests of you and the other person in the conflict.  Describe how you could fractionate the conflict.
  2. Using Fisher and Ury’s methods, describe how you could separate the person from the problem and how you could work together to address the conflict.
  3. How could you have helped the other person in the conflict save face?  How could the other person help you save face?

I few years ago I got into an argument with my roommate. The argument had to do with bills. We had just moved in together after living at the dorms on campus, so we were still figuring things out. The argument had to do with the division of the bills, basically what each of us had to pay. Her argument was that she didn’t have to pay have of the bill but less than that because she wasn’t going to be spending much time in the apartment that month. My argument was that the agreement was that we both had agreed on splitting all of the bills in half and it included the one that she was arguing that she didn’t have to.  Things at one point ( don’t really remember how) escalated to the point that a friend had to step in. Now if I would to separate the person from the situation and save face for her and me  I would probably put into practice the idea of active listening ,which is probably something that neither of us was using.I feel that by doing so we would have both seen where we coming from with our position and the situation wouldn’t have escalated.

Blog Post – Getting Real, Your Conflict Style & Experience

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Write an analysis of how your dominant and less dominant conflict styles affect your leadership abilities and outcomes.  How might using a different conflict style improve the outcomes?  How might using a different conflict style improve the outcomes? Provide specific examples to support your argument.

The online questionnaire labeled me as “Collaborating. You tend to express above average assertiveness and above average cooperation. Some of your associates may think of you as an owl because you believe that two people working together can come up with a better answer than either can produce individually.”

So then this affects my leadership and abilities as it means that I tend to try and have people work together which forces me to use my abilities to help folk collaborate. I believe this style suites me well since it tries to get everyone to work together in harmony which ultimately will yield the best results possible. So then both sides win. According to the text this is the ideal conflict style so I am not sure how to improve outcomes. I can imagine scenarios though where perhaps a party is too dug into their opinion and thus they refuse to collaborate no matter how much communication, time, and effort are invested. Therefore it might be better to employ competition or compromise.

Describe an actual conflict you had with a family member, roommate, or coworker (please use pseudonyms and/or feel free to make your post private and send me the password if you prefer).

I tend to avoid conflict, however one scenario in which conflict arose was between me and a family member. “Lisa” tried to take something from me behind my back and I had to find out about it from friends.

Describe the positions and interests of you and the other person in the conflict.  Describe how you could fractionate the conflict.

My position was that I was upset that she was trying to take things from me behind my back. My interest was in having an honest, open, relationship. Her position was that she felt that she wasn’t doing anything wrong and her interest was that she was just acquiring something that I had in the past given to her openly so it seemed ok for her to do it without my knowledge.

Using Fisher and Ury’s methods, describe how you could separate the person from the problem and how you could work together to address the conflict.

I could try to separate her from the problem by seeing her as a unique individual with who perceives the world differently than I do. We could try to work together to address the problem by having an honest talk with one another about our interests.

How could you have helped the other person in the conflict save face?  How could the other person help you save face?

I could help her save face by letting her know that I will still see her in a positive light as long as we work together towards a common solution. She could help me save face by letting me know that she was not taking things from me out of disrespect

Listen Blood is Blood

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In this episode the dynamics were changed by the swapping of the tribe members. There was a new force to reckon with tribe members were united with their loved ones. This was especially the case for the coyopa tribe which lost the challenge and faced having to vote someone off of the island. The group couple and family members had to listen to one another and also listen to other tribe groups. It seemed that listening became critical as the tribe pairs tried to decide who they were going to vote off next. They asked one another information to understand group dynamics from the previous tribe grouping and to understand how people behaved in the previous tribe prior to the swap.  It seemed that they were using listening to evaluate and to analyze tribe dynamics. The thing that stood out to me the most is the fact that very few conversations between tribe members are filmed throughout the episode. Of course the interesting dynamic interactions that do take place have to be illustrated to give the idea that the tribal members are consulting one another. However, it seems as though the players are constantly listening and observing tribe members. They are listening to the way they behave and interact as well as the things they say. On survivor the cast is constantly listening understand, remember, interpret and evaluate other players. This helps them make decisions on forming a strategy for the winning the prize and staying on the show. All the while we studied group communication in the sense of the show I had not considered what a large role listening played in the show. I was mostly concerned with the things being said by the cast. It is now very apparent that listening plays just as much of a role in what happens in groups as what people say.