Last Thoughts about our Team Process

This week our team finished up our team paper. We used a wiki to create our document. After developing an outline each one of us developed a section that was of most interest to us. Once we all submitted our sections we all worked on editing and tying everything together. This was the most challenging part of this assignment. It is difficult when many minds are working on one document. Having your ideas deleted or added to can make you feel that your writing isn't adequate. It is also hard to make the decision to change or add to someone else's section without feeling uncomfortable. It is hard to make executive decisions untill you have everyone's "ok". I do believe that the process in creating this paper was the main object of the assignment. Learning to work as a team has its' challenges but it is part of developing a positive online learning community. Out team probably called eachother more than anyone else has (atleast in my opinion). Perhaps this is because each one of us had different interpretations of the assignment and team roles. Getting this important clarification was essential in our team process. Overall, I think I learned a lot about the team process. Some members are okay with a little bit of chaos at first and others tend to panic when things aren't completely detailed at first. Flexibility, I believe, is important but each member has to be willing to put in 100% effort to make sure the workload is shared amoung all members. The biggest challenge our team had was that most of us have really busy lives and had to do the majority of team work towards the end of the week.
Will assessment direct your final paper research?
We did use the rubric to guide our research and writing of our paper. We tried to use the guidlines to help create a polished paper, ready for submission.

Seymour Papert

Papert believes that the one skill children need is the skill of being able to learn. He doesn't mention all the other skills children will need when they grow up. In order to adapt to different situations they will need to know how to be flexible, responsible, caring, respectful, understanding, compasionate, have integrity, a friend, organization, etc.... I also think that children need the information they are learning in school in order to function well in society. For example, my daughter is learning about fractions. She will need this skill in many situations she will encounter during her life. She won't be able to adapt to a learning situation that requires this skill unless she learned it when she was young and of course retained the intormation.

Week in Retrospect

This week I would like to show appreciation for Janet Nichols. She has really kept our team organized and is detailed in her approach to planning.

This week's group dynamics have been an eye-opener regarding group dynamics and how I learn. Each member in any group dynamic has very unique skills, time constraints, personal lives and of course expectations. When creating group guidelines it's important to consider these factors. Flexibility is important and faith in our group members that they haven't somehow got lost in cyberspace is crucial if you want to lower your stress levels. The flexibility of online courses means that if you can't log on because of personal of professional constraints for a couple of days you still have time during the week to complete assignments. As a learner, it's important for me to have people that depend on me. If I tell my group that I will be completing or posting an assignment at the end of the week, it keeps me on track. I know that I have a deadline and that my group is expecting me to compete it. They can safely return to their personal/professional lives knowing that things have been taken care of.

For the final paper I would like readers to have an understanding of the effects of class size in online courses.

Individual/Team Process Module 4

Individual:
This week I have been trying to come up with a good topic for my article. In my article I would like to explore the topic of learning and how to use digital media to enhance learning. This is a topic that sparked my interest in the digital media course that I am taking and would like to continue to explore the use of media. Does it enhance learning? What are the best ways to use digital medial to enhance learning and not overload the learner with too much information or distractions. Faye made a really good comparison of how images of important events such as the assassination of JFK and 911 stay in our long term memory. These images are linked to what we have learned about these events.
Team:
Our team came up with the guidelines for developing our paper. These are the guidelines our team agreed on:

• The group will use the group discussion board as the main work area. This will enable all members of the group to stay up-to-date and fully informed. Other tools such as a chat, conference calls or wikis may be utilized in addition to the discussion board depending upon the assignment.
• Email and phone calls will be reserved for urgent matters. Also when sending email to one member of the group, all other group members will be cc’d so everyone can stay informed unless it is a private matter.
• Everyone in the group agrees to check the discussion board on a regular basis when work is in process and at least daily the week before major assignments are due.
• The group will set time line and task assignments that all agree on at the beginning of the project.
• All members will participate in the editing process before the due date.
• Other group members will be notified immediately if a group member’s individual deadlines can’t be met.
• Group members will be diplomatic and critique the project, not the person.
• The group will discuss everyone’s time limitations and how that impacts their ability to complete work in the group setting before the beginning of major assignments.

I think that as a group we have all acted professional and respectful and didn't need to add this to our guidelines! We all have busy schedules so it is nice to be part of a team that keeps this in mind when conducting group discussions. Having a time line to submit assignments is very helpful to keep all of us on task. Everyone has also been willing to take responsibility for different tasks since the beginning of our group work. Our next step will be to divide up the writing assignment. This will need to be done early on so that we can all get started on research and writing. The final editing process will also be important to create a polished cohesive assignment.

Team Process

This week's team process has gone pretty smoothly. Early on in the week I emailed my team and suggested a possible time line for making our decision, process and communication. My team was very receptive and Faye agreed to summarize our process and decision. We started out on our personal emails but decided that the Blackboard would be better to make sure everyone was in the loop. Somehow Dale got left out of the discussion but we caught up with him later on in the week. Overall I think that everyone in the group was working hard with making decisions and coming up with ideas. I think that our group is pretty cohesive, cooperative and able to make decisions together. I have been able to talk to Faye a couple of times today. This morning we talked about our topic and the Dale situation. She didn't want to make a decision without haven spoken to him first. I realized shortly after that Dale left us a message on Blackboard and Janet had already communicated with him. Faye was relieved and so was I. Dale wasn't lost in cyberspace afterall! Later on she called me to talk about our other course EDUI 6781 and some technical difficulties she was having with her e-portfolio. I was happy to be able to help! It is encouraging to be part of a learning community where people can get help not only from their professor but from other students in the course. I really believe that a learning community is a place where all members learn from each other and the exchange of information is continuous. Knowing that I'm not alone in this course keeps me motivated. I know that people are counting on me and that I can count on them too.

K-12 Online Staff Development

As long as I have been a teacher I have been attending staff development for current curriculum, theory, procedures and other teacher related topics at school, the district office or other lecture hall in the area. On the most part they tend to have the same type of delivery and at times I walk away with little or no information I can use in my classroom. Much of what I learn is by working with other teachers or studying on my own. I would like to design a system for creating staff development that is online and helps teachers improve their own teaching and is accessible at their own convenience.