ETEC 533- (Group Project) How People Learn: Technology to Support Learning
The first group project that we completed within this course was a valuable learning experience. I was given the opportunity to sign up for a topic of my own choosing from within a list of topics provided by the instructor. Although I was not able to choose my group mates, we all ended up in this particular group by choice, which made us all likeminded from the start.
In our initial meeting, we wanted to establish which platform we would be using to create our presentation. A few online tools were suggested, one of them being Prezi. At this point in the MET program I had not yet used Prezi myself to create any media. I had however been exposed to Prezi presentations within the program and in professional meetings at school as well. It would be fair to say that it is not my favourite presentation medium. After hearing the affordances that some of the other group members shared who did have experience with the tool, I kept an open mind and agreed to use Prezi for this project.
One of the first challenges that my group then faced while completing our project came about because of the fact that Prezi, our platform of choice, does not allow multiple users to be in working on the presentation at the same time. Luckily, the time zone differences within our group actually proved to be advantageous. To coordinate our schedules, we all signed up for specific dates and time frames that worked well for us. We all agreed that we would restrict our own access to the Prezi project according to this established schedule in order to avoid any problems related to multiple users altering content. I liked this for two reasons; 1.) everyone was given an equitable amount of time to access the presentation, and 2.) the restricted time frame kept everyone accountable for their portion of the assignment in a timely manner.
While completing this assignment, I also learned something incredibly valuable from a member of my group. We were having our group meetings via Google Hangout throughout the creative process to be sure that we were all satisfied with the end product and to double check that we had met the assignment criteria to the best of our ability. When we met to go over the final product, one of the people in my group ran the Prezi while screen casting it for the rest of us within the chat area. I had no idea that this was a Hangout feature. We were all still able to chat and interact, while our screen mirrored the Prezi presentation that she was playing. We were able to pause the presentation and make small adjustments within the open Prezi platform in real time. Knowing that Google Hangouts were going to continue to play a major role in my group work, this was a great tool to add in to my technology tool kit. Even though our presentation was created separately by four different people, I think that in the end, we were able to produce an informative and cohesive final product. The use of technology to collaborate on projects has definitely changed my opinion in regard to the value of group work.
I am including this project as an artifact of learning partly because of the product and partly because of the process. The learning that resulted from my own research, as well as that of my fellow group members was very beneficial for me and would be of value for other educators as well. This was the second time in the program in which I was reluctant to work with the project platform suggested by my group and this was the second time in which that suggested tool turned out to be a great one for the task. Through this creative process I have been reminded of the importance of keeping an open mind and focusing on the affordances and not the limitations of the media presentation tool that you are using. In the classroom setting, this would actually be a good process for students to work through. It is rare that a production tool has every feature that you would like it to have. We need to teach our students to problem solve when faced with challenges of this sort, as this is an important media literacy skill as well.
If you are unable to view the embedded Prezi presentation below, you can also access the presentation here.
In our initial meeting, we wanted to establish which platform we would be using to create our presentation. A few online tools were suggested, one of them being Prezi. At this point in the MET program I had not yet used Prezi myself to create any media. I had however been exposed to Prezi presentations within the program and in professional meetings at school as well. It would be fair to say that it is not my favourite presentation medium. After hearing the affordances that some of the other group members shared who did have experience with the tool, I kept an open mind and agreed to use Prezi for this project.
One of the first challenges that my group then faced while completing our project came about because of the fact that Prezi, our platform of choice, does not allow multiple users to be in working on the presentation at the same time. Luckily, the time zone differences within our group actually proved to be advantageous. To coordinate our schedules, we all signed up for specific dates and time frames that worked well for us. We all agreed that we would restrict our own access to the Prezi project according to this established schedule in order to avoid any problems related to multiple users altering content. I liked this for two reasons; 1.) everyone was given an equitable amount of time to access the presentation, and 2.) the restricted time frame kept everyone accountable for their portion of the assignment in a timely manner.
While completing this assignment, I also learned something incredibly valuable from a member of my group. We were having our group meetings via Google Hangout throughout the creative process to be sure that we were all satisfied with the end product and to double check that we had met the assignment criteria to the best of our ability. When we met to go over the final product, one of the people in my group ran the Prezi while screen casting it for the rest of us within the chat area. I had no idea that this was a Hangout feature. We were all still able to chat and interact, while our screen mirrored the Prezi presentation that she was playing. We were able to pause the presentation and make small adjustments within the open Prezi platform in real time. Knowing that Google Hangouts were going to continue to play a major role in my group work, this was a great tool to add in to my technology tool kit. Even though our presentation was created separately by four different people, I think that in the end, we were able to produce an informative and cohesive final product. The use of technology to collaborate on projects has definitely changed my opinion in regard to the value of group work.
I am including this project as an artifact of learning partly because of the product and partly because of the process. The learning that resulted from my own research, as well as that of my fellow group members was very beneficial for me and would be of value for other educators as well. This was the second time in the program in which I was reluctant to work with the project platform suggested by my group and this was the second time in which that suggested tool turned out to be a great one for the task. Through this creative process I have been reminded of the importance of keeping an open mind and focusing on the affordances and not the limitations of the media presentation tool that you are using. In the classroom setting, this would actually be a good process for students to work through. It is rare that a production tool has every feature that you would like it to have. We need to teach our students to problem solve when faced with challenges of this sort, as this is an important media literacy skill as well.
If you are unable to view the embedded Prezi presentation below, you can also access the presentation here.