Short of breathing, the one activity that humans engage in the most is communication. In a business scenario, communication not only helps us share our thoughts but is essential in getting our work done and becoming more successful. In a business scenario, communication includes written letters, summaries, and emails. Clear communication skills are needed for impactful oral presentations in front of an audience. Even everydaypracticeslike participating in meetings and managing interpersonal communication are key to achieving long and short-term business goals. This course will help you improve these communications skills by exploring the inherent challenges and providing techniques to help overcome hurdles.

This course is part of ASU's Professional Writing MicroBachelors program. If you complete the two courses that are part of this program with a passing grade, you can earn transferable credit from one of edX's university credit partners. Language and the ability to communicate effectively are critical skills in the global economy and in our daily social exchanges, but they are also essential to gaining a deeper understanding of who we are. This introductory writing course will help you develop and express ideas effectively for a variety of personal and professional purposes, audiences, and occasions. During the course, you will complete several major writing projects, keep a regular writer's journal, and maintain a writer's website, where you will showcase your work and demonstrate what you have learned. If you wish to earn university credit, we will ask you to complete all assignments. Coaching If you are enrolled in the verified track (paid track) in any course that is a part of a MicroBachelors program, including this course, you are eligible for coaching at no additional cost. Please note that coaching is only available via SMS to U.S. phone lines. Our coaches (real humans) are ready to help you with career exploration, navigating resources, staying motivated, and solving problems along the way to your goals. Learn more about the value of coaching directly from one of our coaches, Erin.

Media is a powerful tool for promoting social justice. If you are an activist involved in promoting or advocating for a social cause, this course will provide you with valuable information and guidance. The course will help you to identify and pitch a newsworthy story, select appropriate media for publicising your story; and assess the impact of your story. The course also addresses working in an ethical way as both an activist and citizen journalist.

This course is part of the University of Cambridge’s Micro Master’s program in Writing for Performance and Entertainment Industries. We will be looking in depth at how to turn your ideas into well-structured story arcs with resonant plot points. How can we write dialogue that sings with sub-text, and embodies your own distinctive creative voice? We will look closely at form, and find ways of relating theme to style. How should we structure a play-text so that it is active and makes every dramatic beat count? How will you use stage direction, music and set design to develop the metaphoric world of your play? All these questions and more will be answered. We will be thinking comparatively about advice from the most famous script-editors and dramaturgs, as well as investigating the work of Brecht, Richard Schechner, Augusto Boal, Japanese Noh theatre, and epic forms of theatre from around the world. We will explore how theory may inspire creative practice and vice versa. What commonalities does theatre-making share in cultural communities across the world and why is important that we reference creative practices outside our own? Join us and expand your perspective on what is possible with space, words, and live performance. Learning to pace a story effectively, to engage and surprise an audience(and to make them laugh!), are useful skills for your professional development outside the Arts. Skill transferability, flexible thinking, and expert language abilities are now essential in a diversifying global job market - come and learn essential new skills, and have fun doing it! You will be set writing exercises over the course of the module, and you will asked to keep a brief creativity journal to note how your ideas progress and how your intuition leads you into productivity. By the end of this module, you will have completed a plan for the structure of a new play. You will have tried out different ways of writing dialogue and found one that suits you – you will be invited to share this in a discussion forum with your peers.

Although there are some robots you might never get to meet (or might hope you never meet), such as those sent to space, war or rescue situations, many other robots and bots are being developed to populate people's homes, the online spaces they frequent, their workplaces, and the social spaces they visit. This course explores how people communicate with robots and bots in everyday life, both now and into the future. Module 1 discusses the difficulties of defining what a robot is, as well as briefly introducing bots. Module 2 focuses on bots, chatbots and socialbots in detail, to consider how people communicate with these programs in online spaces, as well as some ethical questions these interactions raise. Robots in the home are the subject of Module 3, with a discussion of robots designed to act as personal assistants leading into some examples of assistive and care robots, as well as telepresence robots that allow people to interact with one another at a distance through a robot. Module 4 considers robots at work, from the potential of telepresence robots to enable remote operations, to robots designed to share people's workspaces, and potentially even take their jobs. One example of a public space where robots might alter people's working and social lives greatly is on the roads with the development of self-driving vehicles, robots that need to be able to communicate with their passengers as well as with other road users.

This course is part of the University of Cambridge’s MicroMasters program in Writing for Performance and Entertainment Industries. We will be looking in depth at how to build a screenplay that communicates its central meaning through strong visual images. How do we write a script containing almost no dialogue? And when we do have to use speech, what constitutes successful dialogue for the screen? How will film genre and history influence your writing? What is the difference between a tagline and a logline? How do you write an effective outline of your script for a producer to read? What is a ‘story bible’ and when do you need one? All these questions and more will be answered. We will be thinking comparatively about screenplay advice from film and TV industry gurus such as Robert McKee and John Yorke - as well as asking you to find your own habits and practices as writing methodology. We will critically analyse the work of filmmakers such as Jeremiah Mosese, Mustashrik Mahbub and Melina Matsoukas. How do our global film and TV industries reflect our social and cultural concerns and needs today? The work of James Frey ( Queen and Slim ), Michaela Coel ( I May Destroy You ) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge ( Fleabag, Killing Eve ) will inspire us to find the stories within ourselves than can change the world. Successful visual communication is a vital skill in any workplace. Visual images are the fastest way to communicate the most information possible in the shortest possible time, and a strong intuitive and strategic grasp of this process will offer you an in valuable creative toolbox for expert communication in any professional sphere. Skill transferability, flexible thinking, and expert language abilities are now essential in a diversifying global job market - come and learn essential new skills, and have fun doing it! You will be set writing exercises over the course of the module, and you will asked to keep a brief creativity journal to note how your ideas progress and how your intuition leads you into productivity. By the end of this module, you will have completed several new scenes of a screenplay, with a considered plan for the structure of the entire piece of work. You will have reflected on how social and cultural mores can become useful themes to create commercially successful work.

This course is part of the University of Cambridge’s MicroMaster’s program in Writing for Performance and Entertainment Industries. How can you utilise the innovative creative world of online digital platforms to advance and create new material as dramatic writers? We will be looking in depth at how to find an digital form that stimulates you as a writer. Do you want to write interactive gameplay ‘script’ for the video game industry? Or learn how to write soundscapes for radio drama and podcast plays? Perhaps you want to create new content for your own YouTube channel? We will be looking at how narrative skill and digital production coincide in all these mediums. We will consider successful professional examples of digital narratives; look deeply into the changing form of scriptwriting in the video game industry, as well as acquire a knowledge of how to reach a target audience online. This is a comprehensive introduction to writing and innovating digital content. Learning to write for online platforms, and how to communicate most effectively with an online audience, is now an highly transferable skill for any profession. Digital expertise, flexible thinking, and expert storytelling abilities are now essential in a diversifying global job market - come and learn essential new skills, and have fun doing it! You will be set writing exercises over the course of the module, and you will asked to keep a brief creativity journal to note how your ideas progress and how your intuition leads you into productivity. By the end of this module, you will have completed several pieces of script in a range of digital mediums of your choice.

This five-week course will help you identify reliable information in news reports and become better informed about the world we live in. We will discuss journalism from the viewpoint of the news audience. Together, we will examine the following topics: What makes news? The blurred lines between news, promotion and entertainment. Why does news matter? Social sharing and the dynamics of the news cycles. Who provides information? How to evaluate sources in news reports. Where is the evidence? The process of verification. When should we act? Recognizing our own biases. How do we know what we know? Becoming an active news audience. If you are interested in becoming a more discerning news consumer, please join us and sign up today.

Strong leadership is regarded as one of the best predictors of organizational success and critical human capital required for career progression in almost every organization. However, leadership is also a highly complex and often misunderstood phenomenon. It‘s hard to define, but we all know good and bad leadership when we see it. This course will equip aspiring leaders with an understanding of what leadership is and how an individual can develop the skills required to become an effective leader in their organization. Taught by instructors and presenters with decades of business and not-for-profit leadership experience, you will learn the difference between leadership and management, the importance of understanding others and building empathy and relationships, and gain a better understanding of the different leadership styles you may encounter throughout your career. Learn through a series of engaging videos, interviews, case studies, written reflections, peer feedback, and other self-insight activities. Our instructors and faculty will help you identify your own values and ethics as a leader, and most importantly, build your self-efficacy, your confidence and belief in your own ability to achieve intended results.

Are you finding it difficult to start the conversation, or find the right words when communicating in English? Do you know how to start and end conversations in a polite way? Do you want to learn more about American, British, Canadian, Australian, South Korean, Colombian, and Chinese cultures? If so, you’ve come to the right course! 语言最重要的功能就是交流。在交流中我们要知道如何开始一个对方感兴趣的话题，回答别人的提问，自然、流畅地完成一个对话。本课程选取了8个主题，由50多位来自美国、英国、加拿大、澳大利亚、哥伦比亚、中国的老师及各个年龄段的学生，在真实的场景中，用最地道的表达和最纯正的英语，带你谈论日常生活、学习的方方面面。 本课程分为八个单元，每个单元有一个主题，分别是： 1、个人信息的介绍与交换 2、我们的家人和朋友 3、饮食与用餐 4、英语学习的目的和方法 5、假日活动和难忘的经历 6、兴趣爱好 7、情感表达 8、保持健康 每个主题由十余组对话和小组讨论，外籍老师的中西方文化差异介绍，中国老师的重点词汇、句型讲解，听力理解练习和口语测试构成。通过学习和练习，你将可以和讲英语的朋友们自如地交谈、讨论与主题相关的任何问题。本课程的学习方法有很多。英语学习者可以在反复地听和跟读对话的过程中，不断积累语言素材，和你身边的朋友或同课程的学习者进行对话练习；英语教师可以选用本课程中适合的主题，组织学生进行听说训练，组织高效课堂。也许你不能理解每段对话的全部内容，只需听懂大意，随着课程的进展，你听懂的内容会越来越多。让我们一起实现一次英语听说的飞跃吧。 本门课程在制作过程中得到了香港伟新教育基金和Google公司的资助，特此鸣谢。