Groupwork . . . again

I do not mind groupwork. It does help produce a final product that I would not be able do alone, but it is so frustrating at times to depend on contact with others and keep waiting and waiting for that contact to happen. Our RE group really needs to meet in teleplace or in person, but I am getting impatient. We are researching some on our own now, but I am anxious to get some ideas shared so we can get our bearings. So far, we've only been in contact by email and by leaving notes and work in our teleplace workroom. One of our group members has been in the process of moving, so she legitimately has pressing issues with time, internet connection, etc. Still, the frustration I'm feeling will not subside until we get the chance to meet. Once we get a little more direction in our project, I will feel better. I've suggested a timeline but haven't heard back from everyone . . . so there's more waiting.

Qualities, Contributions, and Expectations

One of the members of my group wrote an email directly to me because she said she was not able to get into ConnectYard for some reason. She wrote to thank me for my help getting her set up in Teleplace. She was the administrator in my group. From her involvement in the group, I can tell that she has many of the qualities that I respect in a good administrator. First, she always acted professionally and she knew how and when to ask for help. She accepted help graciously and yet she realized that it didn't diminish her status. During our meetings, she took on the role of moderator, often summarizing what we had said or agreed upon and reiterating each person's agreed-upon tasks so that we were all clear on what we had decided to do. She was business-like yet personable and friendly.

As I reflect on my contribution to the group, I realize that probably the most major contribution I made was to set the stage for our meetings. I took it upon myself to set up the environment for our first meeting and to introduce group members to the features of Teleplace that would be of most benefit to our group in the short period of time we would have together. I set up a corner of the Cross Program Collaboration room with 2 display panels, 2 bookshelves, and signs to help everyone know what was available. I also put several resources on the bookshelves--documents describing the assignment and the whitepaper we were to read, along with a couple web pages on 21st century business and learning. Then in our first meeting, I showed everyone briefly how we could import documents and web sites and put on the shelves or view together in the display. I also taught them how to view items privately and save on their computer. We also took a blank document and used it for group brainstorming. These skills proved useful for all of our group meetings.

As I reflect on the experience as a whole, I will say that I had high expectations of what we would be able to do together. I expected that we would gain more insight into each person's perspective on the topic of what is happening in education today and where it is moving. In reality, we discussed these matters very little. I think a lot of it had to do with our time frame. It took several days of contacting each other through ConnectYard and email before we met for our first meeting, so we had about 10 days to get the work done. With everyone on drastically different schedules, our few meetings were spent trying to achieve as much as possible with minimal time. There wasn't much time for chit chat, but the Pooh in me craved a little more of this interaction. If I were the instructor, I would definitely plan to do these kinds of projects again, but I would plan for just a little more time.

Lessons learned

I have been working on finalizing our project since everyone seems happy with their contribution and ready to be done with it. I noticed that the person who did the prezi did not cite his sources or even list URLs for the 3 YouTube videos he used. So I mentioned in connectyard that we need to list the resources on the prezi and the creator of the prezi responded that he didn't need to list resources because the videos themselves were resources. So I responded, as P.C. as possible, that we should list the videos URLs as source material since the prezi was a created work that used the work of others (the YouTube videos). Anyway, we'll see how much of an uphill battle this will be. I feel like copyright issues will probably follow us well into our careers in the library.

Settling

I am so frustrated. My group met on Monday, and I was able to meet just fine while I was at the library in Spartanburg. We also met yesterday afternoon. I was quite distracted during our last meeting because I had to meet while supervising my children. With 5 small kids, some of them very dependent on me, it was hard for me to participate in the group discussion. Our group members seem pretty willing to work, are capable, and are interested in completing the project, but one member met only once--that was yesterday. We had divided up tasks and decided to do an edublog, at the suggestion of one of our tech people. She said it was a very easy format, similar to a web page but would be easy for people to upload content from their respective points. I agreed, because I thought some of the other things we were considering were a little limited. I wanted to be able to include visual elements and graphics as well as video. I briefly looked at voice thread and glogster, but my concern was that I didn't think you could do video on them. Apparently, no one in our group knew much about them either, so we all just went with this simple format that I find completely boring. Everyone has wanted to work quickly to decide how to divide things, work on it on our own and put it together like a puzzle. The problem I see is that our puzzle isn't interesting to look at, much less read all the text we've included. At the beginning of our group-work, I'll admit that I didn't devote a great deal of time researching the possible options for format because I had a lot of work to complete for another class and I was suffocating from the workload at home, at church, at school. I think our final product will be ok but not the wow factor that I was hoping for. What would I do differently? --communicate these concerns with my group early in the process, research more in the beginning, and communicate expectations up front. I am not a person that likes to "make do" with what I feel to be minimal effort. So now, I am struggling to reconcile my time spent on the various areas of my life. It seems like everything isn't working out like I want. Everything I value is suffering. So do I learn to settle for less? Where do I spend my priorities? That is the question I must ask myself. I already know what is important to me but I don't think it is humanly possible for me to get it all done well.

How to present the info is key

I want to vent a little. I am not the type of student who wants to do the same thing everyone else is doing. I like a little innovation, creativity, something over and above, something different. I see the information on the 21st century learner/person all circling around and encompassing the same general information. The whitepaper and other resources given to us are pretty comprehensive and I don't see my research turning up anything very different in terms of information. Where I think we need to go here is in the way we choose to present the information. I want to be creative in format since the information is probably going to be the same old same old for each group. The problem is: we don't have much time. Also, it is very hard to create something brand new with a group--especially a group of paper pushers like us. It is going to be a challenge. My group meets again tomorrow morning. I am going to the Spartanburg Public Library to work tomorrow because that library visit is part of another class I am taking right now on Public Library Administration. It is just about to kill me to get everything done. I will be so glad when that class is over and I have a little while to concentrate on ONLY this class. While I am at the Spartanburg library, I will check out their wi-fi and do my group meeting from there. Should be interesting. I hope I can find somewhere I can use my headset with mic.

Group dynamics

After a night's sleep, my mind wandered to the group meeting last night and I thought I would pause before the events of the day to record a few of my observations about our team. This is how the dynamics played out. I took the lead in getting everyone notified and establishing a location in teleplace to meet. I offered willingness to work in a different forum if others were more familiar with Active Worlds but no one spoke up (in connectyard or emails) so we went with my lead in Teleplace. So I set up a workspace in the Cross Program Collaboration Room, tucked in the corner of the room, with a bookshelf, a couple display panels, some signs to lead the way, and some resources already on the shelf. It looked as if that room had been used by a previous group of classes but it was much like a ghost town, with fragments remaining of activities from days gone by. But it seemed like the obvious location that others would recognize. My concern with having the forum here is that we do not have a separate sound region so the entire expanse of the room fills with our conversations when we meet. If other groups happen to meet at the same time as ours, that will cause problems, so I may ask Lori for help setting up a sound region in our little corner of the forum.

Back to the group dynamics. I set up the scene, then the first to show up was Julie, the administrator, who was having a bit of difficulty at first with getting into Teleplace. She worked earlier in the day, finally getting in touch with Lori to help her with the passwords and login and she went through the Orientation Station, at my suggestion. When it came time for the meeting, she was ready and had been through orientation, so she was better prepared. Our curriculum representative came next, and needed a little help getting her avatar set up, but I helped her and we talked while waiting for everyone else. She was interested from the start with the information we needed. What was the assignment and what were we going to be looking for. When the time came to meet, there were just 3 of us, but we began. I showed them some of the features of teleplace, like how we could create a new document together and how to import documents and web pages to the display panel. That was all we needed to get going. Later in the meeting, our IT group member showed up and immediately started discussing different options for the presentation. At the time, we were looking at a prezi. She gave us some good suggestions for a brainstorming site we could all contribute to and some ideas for our final product. We ended up taking a document and splitting up the research and planning another meeting time. Everyone seemed to fit right into their roles of specialty. Cool.

At Last! We meet!

This afternoon, after much emailing and chasing messages and wondering what in the world we are doing, my group was finally able to meet in Teleplace. Hallelujah! We met this afternoon at 4:30 and I was home with my 3 youngest. Within about 10 minutes, the baby was up from his nap, crying for me to get him up and I had to apologize for the noise in the background a couple of times, but we got through it.
Honestly, I am feeling a little like guinea pigs again, like we are the test subjects to find all the bugs and chase them out. I think ConnectYard has wonderful potential for truly helping people connect across disciplines and find commonalities using the "trends" feature of the site. It is a nice way to connect in terms of emails/twitter/facebook but it does have its limitations. I have always been wordy and talkative, so my emails (and my blogs) tend to go on and on and on. Not good on ConnectYard. Also, attachments don't seem to work, so when I cut and pasted a document into my email message, the message became to long so it was cut off (right at the important part, I might add). AAAARRRGGGHHH!!! I realize that, to a large extent, the problem is that my expectations don't match up with the reality and that I don't have a lot of time to sit and figure this out. I haven't been to bed before 2 am for the last 2 nights. And there's no summer vacation at my house--had to be up by 7, with a middle of the night waking by my one year old around 3:30 am. I'm getting old and I can't keep up these "undergrad" hours like I used to be able to do. End of griping.
I found myself in a position of teaching about Teleplace, which I love. I could be the poster child for Teleplace, the cheerleader, the highly-paid spokesperson. I set up a space for us to work this afternoon, just the corner of a room with a display screen, a bookshelf, and some resources that were already given to us, ready to share. It was not unlike setting up house, making things cozy. When the first people arrived, it was so nice to be able to tell them how Teleplace will help us with our group project and have tools and resources ready to get started. Only one member of my group had ever been into Teleplace before, so we had a bit if a speedbump at the beginning getting everyone logged on and ready. Apparently, there wasn't enough introduction on the part of their professor(s) to prevent the last minute "we're about to meet and I don't know what's going on" panic. We made it through our first meeting. One group member never showed and responded to an email earlier in the week but has dropped off the planet since then. But we worked together, each contributing our own expertise, divided a few tasks, we have a mission to work on independently, and we have set up another meeting time. Teleplace worked beautifully for us, even the newbies. With our varied schedules, this project has proven to be more difficult than expected to coordinate enough meeting times to get the project done. Next time, I would suggest 3 weeks, because it has taken 4 days just to get everyone together to meet for the first time. I feel like we don't have much more time to get our goal accomplished. If everyone was already familiar with Teleplace, the time frame would have been easier.

I realize that every time we try something new, innovative, exciting and potentially life altering, there will be bugs, ghosts in the machine, and factors no one had really thought about that will appear to thwart the process. But we will not be swayed. We will work through the problems. We can smell the cheese at the end of the maze and we're going to figure it out in the end.
Off topic rant--my blogs on blogger always have completely the wrong time listed at the end. It is 11:30 pm at my house now but my blog says something around 8pm. Impossible to just be a time zone difference. I wish I knew a way to fix this. While I'm at it (fixing time), I'd see if I could give myself a few more hours in the day.

Connect Yard

I've watched the video on how to get started, set up my profile, logged into my group, and now I am just waiting for everyone else to join in. So far, there is only one other person in my group. Hard to get started when the gang's not all there. This should be an interesting collaboration among group members. I am excited at the prospect of working with people of different backgrounds and seeing what each of us has to bring to the table.

Class is beginning

Administration of the School Library is beginning. We have just been asked to write what we think are the roles of a media coordinator. Let's see.

• A media coordinator manages a school's media resources and library facility including print, electronic, technology equipment and other materials.
  

• Oversee check-in, check-out procedures.

• Coordinate collection materials in alignment with school curriculum.
• Collaborate with educators and administration to facilitate instruction through teaching about research, finding appropriate source materials, etc.
  
• Foster appreciation for reading for enjoyment

Book, Empowering Learners says--Teacher, Information Specialist, Instructional Partner/Collaborator, Program Administrator, Leader