ETEC 511- Group Project- iRelationships: The Real Me Online
Because I was so new to the MET program and e-learning in general, this course consistently challenged me and forced me out of my comfort zone time and time and again. This artifact of learning is the project that I co-created in my very first group project in the program. Looking back on the entire experience now, I realize just how safely I played it during the collaborative process. Although it was a very positive experience, I now realize that I was holding myself back in a number of ways.
I had never attended a ‘Google Hangout’ before, I didn’t even have a webcam or a microphone at the time of our first scheduled meeting, so I had to contribute to the discussion by typing in the comment feed. I quickly realized that this was not a sufficient means by which to be an active participant in these meetings and I promptly went out to buy the technology that I lacked. The project that we decided to create also targeted an age group that was higher than what I teach, and at times I found it a challenge to gage the appropriateness of the tasks that we were designing, as I lacked the context to make what I felt were informed decisions. As a result of all of these factors, I took on the most basic roles in the creation of the interactive website. I selected, complied and posted the curricular outcomes that we hoped to meet with our online learning tasks. I worked on the references, researched videos that would be appropriate to link for certain student activities, completed basic site construction tasks, and built the Word documents to create the ‘printables’ that would accompany the student assignments. I took a very active role though in our Google Hangouts and in the decision making process in order to meet our project goals. I absolutely felt like an equal contributor in the project, but looking back on it now, I totally think that I took the easy way out. Had I taken this course in the latter stages of the program, I know that my role within the group would have been vastly different. Reflecting on this particular task has really shown me how much I have grown. My design and technology skills are much stronger, my confidence is higher and I am no longer uneasy about taking risks in the collaborative and development processes.
I had never attended a ‘Google Hangout’ before, I didn’t even have a webcam or a microphone at the time of our first scheduled meeting, so I had to contribute to the discussion by typing in the comment feed. I quickly realized that this was not a sufficient means by which to be an active participant in these meetings and I promptly went out to buy the technology that I lacked. The project that we decided to create also targeted an age group that was higher than what I teach, and at times I found it a challenge to gage the appropriateness of the tasks that we were designing, as I lacked the context to make what I felt were informed decisions. As a result of all of these factors, I took on the most basic roles in the creation of the interactive website. I selected, complied and posted the curricular outcomes that we hoped to meet with our online learning tasks. I worked on the references, researched videos that would be appropriate to link for certain student activities, completed basic site construction tasks, and built the Word documents to create the ‘printables’ that would accompany the student assignments. I took a very active role though in our Google Hangouts and in the decision making process in order to meet our project goals. I absolutely felt like an equal contributor in the project, but looking back on it now, I totally think that I took the easy way out. Had I taken this course in the latter stages of the program, I know that my role within the group would have been vastly different. Reflecting on this particular task has really shown me how much I have grown. My design and technology skills are much stronger, my confidence is higher and I am no longer uneasy about taking risks in the collaborative and development processes.
The Project
This was a group project created in collaboration with three other classmates. The project was a case-study style unit targeting students in grades 6-8. The goal of the unit was to increase the students’ awareness of their online identity and to also have them examine their own relationship with technology in order to aid them in creating and maintaining a healthy balance of technology in their daily lives. This entire idea was foreign to me. At this time, I had no involvement in social media of any kind and I had a very simple cell phone that I only used for quick calls and minimal text messaging (it did not even have a keyboard). I was pretty much off the grid, so I had to do some exploring to gain an understanding of the online habits of this age group. The work of danah boyd was incredibly valuable in this regard and really helped me gain a perspective on this concept.
As mentioned above in my reflection, this was my first group project in the MET program and I was thrilled by how smoothly it went. My fellow group members were all keen to take on equal roles and each individual more than fulfilled what they were accountable for. This was an enormous learning curve for me, as I had not previously worked with online tools like Google documents or Tiki-Toki. Not only did I learn a great deal about our selected topic, I learned an incredible amount from my classmates and the various web tools that we incorporated in the creation of our web based unit. Although I struggled at first to grasp the context of the project (at the time of its construction I personally did not have an online identity myself at all), I was able to see how the type of lessons that we created could be altered to fit younger students and be used for a wide variety of topics. I particularly liked the self-paced nature of certain elements of the lessons, as well as the blend of online learning aspects and face-to-face classroom based activities. This was the first time that I began to realize the potential of a website based unit of learning. You can view the project site here.
As mentioned above in my reflection, this was my first group project in the MET program and I was thrilled by how smoothly it went. My fellow group members were all keen to take on equal roles and each individual more than fulfilled what they were accountable for. This was an enormous learning curve for me, as I had not previously worked with online tools like Google documents or Tiki-Toki. Not only did I learn a great deal about our selected topic, I learned an incredible amount from my classmates and the various web tools that we incorporated in the creation of our web based unit. Although I struggled at first to grasp the context of the project (at the time of its construction I personally did not have an online identity myself at all), I was able to see how the type of lessons that we created could be altered to fit younger students and be used for a wide variety of topics. I particularly liked the self-paced nature of certain elements of the lessons, as well as the blend of online learning aspects and face-to-face classroom based activities. This was the first time that I began to realize the potential of a website based unit of learning. You can view the project site here.
Click here to visit the project site.