Communications for Technicians

Communications for Technicians

Effective communication skills are essential for anyone working in engineering. This unit will help you develop skills in using and interpreting information in a wide variety of forms. It aims to provide you with experience of speaking, reading and writing as well as graphical means of communication including drawing and sketching. These skills are essential not only for employment in engineering, but also as a basis for further study. The unit also gives you a variety of techniques used for obtaining, evaluating, processing and presenting information.

This unit is often assessed by means of a portfolio of evidence that you build as you progress through the course. You must ensure that you include a variety of sufficient and appropriate evidence within your portfolio. Assessment may also involve assignments and case study work carried out in conjunction with other units (such as Project and Business Systems) as well as sketches and drawings, presentations, data sheets, technical reports and letters that you have produced. You should begin to work on your portfolio as soon as you start the unit and then continue to collect evidence systematically as you progress through the unit. You should also cross-refer the evidence in the portfolio to the individual learning outcomes and the list of evidence requirements. Your tutor will be able to help you with this.

This unit has strong links with the Project and Business Systems core units. Wherever possible, you should apply the techniques that you have developed in this unit to work undertaken in the Project and Business Systems units. There are also links to the optional unit on Engineering Drawing.

Being able to present your work and demonstrate proficiency in your own communications skills is an important aspect of this unit. To do this, you will need to have access to appropriate presentation and graphics software (such as Microsoft Power Point, Visio, Corel Draw, etc.) and spreadsheet software (such as Microsoft Excel) as well as hardware including scanners, laser and ink-jet printers, optical character recognition and speech recognition software, digital cameras and bar code readers. Your school or college will normally be able to supply you with everything that you need as well as guidance and help with its use.