September Summary

This month our group has been working more proactively with regards to the group project. This has come mainly in the form of conducting additional research and gathering resources. There has also been a conscious effort to learn the concepts that are being taught in class, and determine a way in which this information could be applied to our project. Our topic, which is learning styles, has proven so far to have a wealth of information available for our team’s disposal.

It has been very interesting so far how our team has handled collaborating on our group project. The main form of communication that we have utilized has been through email. This is due to the fact that we are completing course work in a fully online environment. However is has also proven to been rather difficult to collaborate exclusively through email. This can be attributed to every team member’s conflicting schedules. So far we have resorted to emailing because it is the most convenient option available. However, as the semester progresses, we will have to find an additional means of collaboration in order to be successful. Not only successful in terms of getting our group project completed, but also successful in the sense that we have an enjoyable and learn fulfilled class.

There are a few different ways that we could approach to creating a more collaborative environment for our group. One method would be to utilize a web-based application that would allow a central location to conduct our work, more specifically if we were write a research paper. One such application could be Google’s application Drive, which was previously known as Google Documents or Docs. This application would our group to work on the same paper simultaneously while having the ability to see what each group member was contributing in real time. One downfall with using this type of application is that it is difficult to know what each other is thinking, for there is usually no verbal communication taking place, just alterations to a single document. This could, however, be alleviated by incorporating video chat into our plan. We could possibly set aside time throughout the week to web conference, which would allow us to get our ideas out in the open and have a meaningful discourse about our topics. This is all something we are very eager to get going.