So it is essay time yet again, however I do feel a little more confident in my essay writing skills this semester. I think the initial tutorial with Darina where she pointed out where we were still making mistakes was very helpful. It was great that we had this at the start of the semester. I feel I made a more conscious effort to improve on my referencing etc. because we were reminded of this before we started our essays. I managed to find a few very useful books for this essay in the library. The most interesting books were:
·Alessi, S. M., Trollip, S. R. (1991), Computer-Based Instruction, Methods and Development, Prentice-Hall: New Jersey.
·Brooks, D. W. (1997), Web-Teaching, A Guide to Designing Interactive teaching for the World Wide Web, Plenum Press: New York.
Lau, L. (2000), Distance Learning Technologies: Issues, Trends and Opportunities, Hershey, PA: Idea Publishing Group.
I also found a very good podcast on essay writing on the University of Leeds website which might be of use to some people:
Now that we have our teams for the group collaboration project it is time to get cracking. Our group held our first meeting through the Sakai discussion forum facility and we decided to create a thread for this week’s first meeting in order to store the information which we had discussed in an organised manner. We designated the different tools that we each decided to examine and I chose Skype VoIP(video conferencing). Skype video conferencing immediately had one major advantage over discussion forums as it is a synchronous tool. I also found that the group came to a united decision much faster when using Skype rather than in the discussion forum where they had to wait for a reply. Since starting this project I have even begun to use Skype much more on a personal basis. I think this module is definitely very helpful in enabling us to learn how to adapt collaboration tools to many different situations.
An almost perfect example of teamwork is shown by the USNavy Blue Angels in an interesting video which they produced called The Power of Teamwork. This video provides the Blue Angel’s secrets to successful teamwork and I think it also applies to any sort of team, be it virtual or otherwise. Follow the link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR0_SK1K8xY&feature=related
Here are some of the videos guidelines along with some of my own that I learned whilst completing this project:
·Teams should share the same values and goals to ensure optimum team performance.
·Team members should sacrifice individual gain for the greater good of the team.
·Effective leaders lead by a positive example and tap into the strengths and talents of each team member.
·Teams need to communicate openly, honestly and regularly. The video also emphasises the need for trust amongst team members which I think can sometimes be quite difficult in a virtual team where there is little face-to-face interaction.
·Each team member should be valued and their efforts should be praised with positive feedback.
·Team member’s roles and tasks should be clearly defined so as to avoid conflict.
·Each team member should accept responsibility for their role’s and tasks.
Finally, here is light hearted yet insightful look at teamwork inspiration. It might even give some of you a laugh after finishing the project. Some very valid points made too. I will leave it at that for today, enjoy! ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SII1EU3huuE&feature=related
So we had to choose three out of seven online discussion topics. Initially I found it difficult to choose a thread to reply to as we were presented with so many. I did like the way I was able to relate the topics to my own personal experiences. I think the only major drawback with this type of discussion was the fact that most people chose to reply to the same threads and with so many people partaking it became difficult to keep up with the conversation. It would be great if Sakai’s discussion forum had a tagging feature so you could tag the name of the person whose post you are replying to. I did find the topics and peoples comments quite fascinating. I was also curious as to why a couple of topics were left completely untouched… Was this because people felt that these subjects were too controversial or were they fearful that there would be a strong conflict of opinions?
So I have begun to notice that I spend nearly an hour reviewing the various class discussion forums for new posts every day. Blogs do feel like a more relaxed setting than discussion forums for me for some reason. I suppose you are not really worrying about what other people are saying unless you are following their blog or they are commenting on your posts. Even though my blog is public it does feel more private than posting on a discussion forum.
Our virtual team have finished testing our various collaboration tools and it seems like Skype was the big looser. We had originally tried to test video conferencing but we ended up having a conference call, which was quite disappointing as we had hoped to be able to see one another face to face. Our main issues were the internet speed and software problems. We really didn't expect this as we had already completed a test call two days before the scheduled meeting and one on the day of the meeting. We still managed to discuss everything on our agenda but I really thought myself and Shane seemed to dominate the call. I figured that it was my duty to initiate topics of conversation since I was the person who had called the team but I will make a conscious effort let everyone speak during our next call.
So this is my first ever blog.
Once again I am being introduced to a new technology. I am not really sure what I think of blogs yet or exactly how they might be a useful learning tool. I suppose this blog will make me question my own learning and hopefully make me more aware of what I know, don't know and what areas of technical communication and e-learning interest me the most.
At the moment I am in the middle of a project which examines online collaboration tools. I think my favorite tool so far is definitely instant messaging. The only downside of it seems to be when you are searching for an old message and you have to go trawling through lots of different posts. This is where discussion forums seem to have the advantage, as each new topic can be put into a new thread. With Sulis however there is a bit of a delay before discussion forum posts actually appear. I suppose I just need to try explore both of these tools a bit more over the next few days.
