Week 5 Collaboration Experience

Describe your experience with group projects in the classroom, including the benefits achieved and the frustrations encountered.

I have never enjoyed working on projects with others for a variety of reasons.
1) In the past, I wanted a good grade, so to get it, I had to do most of the work myself.
2) Most of the time, the people in my group didn't understand what the teacher wanted, so to get things rolling, I would take on leading the group; it was nerve-racking.
3) I like to be viewed as dependable (who doesn't), but my life doesn't even feel dependable right now. So, I worry that I will let my team down. That part feels worse than me not being able to depend on someone else to come through with their contribution. I will come through, but it might be at 2 am when I get there.

How can online tools help?
1. The ability to type in a phrase such as, "How to create a blog", and have the answer in seconds is the best set of encyclopedias I have ever owned. I still respect the needs for books, libraries, etc., but when I moved to Taiwan, I couldn't take any of it with me due to space and weight. The next best thing was to scan in anything I wanted to take, even recipes b/c a recipe box was too big. I have really come to rely on Internet access; when it's down, I'm lost and sometimes even bored which shows how much I'm on it.
2. Email has become a part of my daily routine. I actually budget the first and last 30 minutes of the work day to respond to and send out emails; I remind people of upcoming events or communicate about issues in classes or the dorm, etc. Just recently, I got the email addresses of all my students and sent them their grades that way. It was private and I was able to encourage them in an individually focused way. It did take a lot of time, but it would've taken longer to talk with each of them face-to-face. What I like best is that I can communicate one idea to anyone at the same time and save myself so much time!
3. Google docs can help by providing a "meeting" place 24/7; we attend the meeting and contribute when we have our own free moment; it doesn't take me away from eating supper with my family or putting my kids to bed. As long as everyone knows the deadline for "meeting and contributing", it works perfectly.
4. Google wave, which is still in beta testing, Here are some ways to use Google Wave: Organize events (weekend activities with religious or student association activities), do group projects (classroom or ad com), share photos simply by dragging and dropping into google wave (yearbook contributions from staff), meeting notes (compling an agenda before a meeting and taking notes during a meeting), brainstorming (any meeting in which creativity is required), and interactive games (soduku, phone conference calling, planning an intinerary for a trip, determining the weather anywhere and viewing maps of any location without having to go to a seperate website. This is exciting!!!!
5. Mind-mapping using Bubbl.us that can be worked on, saved, and uploaded to something like Google Docs.

How to alleviate frustrations with online tools:
1. As the teacher, make sure we know what we expect, how to do what we expect, and to have reasonable expectations.
2. Inform the students of what our exact expectations are so they can suceed vs. putting a lot of work into what they thought we wanted vs. what we really wanted.
3. Create a system that gives both an individual grade as well as a team/group's grade to ensure participation from all team members.