For me this collaborative activity has been a really good learning experience. Having managed to complete the study in unit 5 on time, for the first in H808, I was able to start reading the requirements for this task well before my normal weekend study routine. I was keen to get things underway but was not sure when would be the best time to jump in. The learning points that we mentioned in the previous collaborative exercise were still fresh in my mind so I planned out a simple method of attack taking them into consideration. A small element of me had hoped someone else would start the forum postings off and I could follow others but I had done that before and therefore I felt it was time for me to step forward and take the plunge. It is so pleasing to get positive feedback from others from the first forum post; I couldn’t help wondering if my fellow team members were also ready to get things started and I managed to sneak in before them or they were pleased someone else got the ball rolling as it were?
I am very pleased with the method that we attacked this task and have great confidence that we have produced a fine presentation. Perhaps my extended strength of leading the dialogue in some areas may not have given much room for others to jump in, for that I profoundly apologise as it might have been my military training that spilled into my OU online studies. I guess once you step forward into the line of fire you need to stand up, be counted and commit yourself to doing a good job. Despite having many modern tools at our finger tips the simple ones do seem to work best. I created the Google docs spreadsheet having realised that a fellow member uploaded an excel version to the forum but other members of the group were unable to edit and make comments. Although it took a bit of time setting up the hyperlinks in this spreadsheet it was of great benefit and thankfully much appreciated by the team members. Again taking forward the experiences and lessons learnt from a previous activity using Skype combined with Sync.in allowed us all to collaborate well and make our own inputs to shape the end result. Having had technical problems previously we managed to hold a 90 minutes synchronous session online with 4 of the 6 members which included a member from New Zealand despite the 13 hours time difference; for me this was probably the best and most enjoyable part of the whole collaborative experience.
To maximise full inclusion with the team using google doc presentation enabled us all to use a familiar tool (ie powerpoint) only on more simplistic scale. Before making the suggestion to use this tool I quickly cobbled together a rough outline of the slide titles to help guide team members to see how we could structure the presentation. Once everyone could see the action plan everyone rallied to deliver their individual slides with much enthusiasm. Some very valid points were made in the forum about the look and free of the presentation to help readability and printing. The final Skype session held two days before the proposed deadline helped to not just engage the two team members who could not make the previous live online session but also cemented our way forward to completion. I like to think that this allowed all members to feel their views, thoughts and contributions were valued and appreciated by all team members; I know I did and I’d like to thank those who collaborated with me.
