As future educators, we will be
expected to work with our colleagues in order to enhance our students’ learning
experience. When I first read the
guidelines for this interactivity and realized it was a group project, I must
admit I was a bit frustrated. Group work
in person is hard enough, now imagine it online. I’ve never been a fan of group projects,
because I’ve always been the person who ends up doing the majority of the work. However, unlike my previous experiences,
working with Google Spreadsheet allowed us to monitor each member’s
contribution by accessing the revision history.
Being able to determine accountability ensured that each member
contributed his/her share.
At first conducting the
interactivity seemed difficult because someone had to take the initiative to
email the group and create the spreadsheet.
However, once Cathleen initiated the process, the steps became a lot
easier to complete. Since I was the third
person to start editing, I had a better idea of how my fellow group members
wanted to organize the spreadsheet.
Finding the technologies was also simple. Seeing their ideas inspired me and helped me
come up with technologies of my own.
Overall, the interactivity was enlightening. It allowed me to realize that group projects
can be manageable as long as there is communication and collaboration.
More and more schools are pushing for an “open door policy” with teachers willing to collaborate across content areas and within their content areas with other teachers. Teachers should be willing to work with each other for the benefit of the students and because teachers are also life-long learners. Therefore, it is true that you said we will be “expected” to work collaboratively with our future colleagues. I also share your feelings about group projects because I also have had to do most of the work. As well as what you said that initiating the group project was the biggest challenge. At first I was thinking how am I going to organize all of this, but then all the pieces of the puzzle started fitting together.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that group work online is much more difficult than in person. Although GoogleDocs allows for accountability through the revision history and everybody did do their fair share, it felt like there was something missing in the process. When doing group work physically together in the same room, it's easier to have a discussion and figure out exactly what we're all going to do and how to do it. Doing group work online is much more difficult. It doesn't take much effort to open your mouth and ask a question, but it does take some effort for one person to send an email and another to respond in a timely manner. It simply takes more energy and determination by all parties involved to have a group discussion online. Maybe if we had more of a discussion online, we could have saved ourselves the stress of figuring out how to organize information by working on it together.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all agree that group projects are sometimes difficult when they are done in person, let alone online. Although the process was a little rocky to get started, you are right when you said that once it got going it was easier to fit all the pieces together. It was a little strange at first to not have had to meet face-to-face with other group members, but I think that the Revision History tool on Google Docs was a way that each one of us ensured that the other group members were equally contributing.
ReplyDeleteAs future teachers, it will be important for us to all communicate with one another to keep updated with new things happening or being introduced in our content areas. Whether we use Google Docs to share information or ideas, or another form of technology, I agree that it is something that we will be expected to do as colleagues. To be honest, we’re all going to be in this together soon, so why not help out when we can?