Collaboration, All Star style

Nardy and Sean have already done a good job of talking about the logistics of our project and our workings, so I'll just give you some personal observations about the experience.

I think the hardest part of the process was at the beginning when we were trying to settle on the platform we were going to use to collaborate. We all did a lot of double posting and emailing to make sure the message got through to each other. It was a bit time consuming with the over communication and checking into multiple platforms. I don't remember how it is we finally went with the wave, I guess it just naturally evolved that way.

I liked using the wave. In the past I don't think you were able to get email notifications when changes were made to the wave, but they apparently changed that feature and that made life a lot easier. After a while when the wave got so long that it became clunky, Nardy and I discovered that you could delete pieces. Once we were all on the same page, we did a bit of pruning and that made it more manageable.

Nardy and I also communicated with Google chat a lot, which I found to be a huge plus. Whether I was at work in front of my laptop, or around town with my mobile, I got pinged and we could collaborate on resources or answer each others questions.

I found doing the researching for the content and picking the tools to be the most fun. I found trying to put the framework up around it all to be the most daunting, but Sean had a clear vision and he pulled it all together.

I love the benefits that come from working in a team, seeing things in a new light and how collectively you can do something better than you could have individually. We had a really good team, and I'm so happy with how it all turned out!

Taking a leap...

I don't know about everyone else, but I have found that when there is something that I am dreading, or have a lot of apprehension about, the best thing I can do is stop avoiding it and just jump in.

That's pretty much where I am at right now. I have never taught and have never put a lesson plan together. We've read so much about standards, curriculum, assessment, teaching styles, learning styles - the idea of building something that covers all of those areas seems totally overwhelming. But - I think that once I dive in and get into it, it won't be as overwhelming as I think. I also think this exercise will help me a lot, both in getting over the fear and in giving me a new perspective to consider when reading about online learning.

And, I'm really glad to be doing this with a team!

Week 6 - reassessing

Looking back at the schools I chose, I don't have different views of them now, but that is only because I was able to find so little information in the first place and haven't gotten any more. Perhaps I wish I had chosen different schools where I could have gotten more information, but it seems to be a general challenge, so maybe there wasn't must I could've done differently anyway.

Other views of mine have changed, however. While I believe wholeheartedly in online learning, I think that a blended model that includes both online and face to face holds a lot of potential. I think the ideal model of learning is that which is project based, and a blended style class would lend itself to working in a collaborative research project.

I had also imagined myself building an educational software platform, and while I still want to do that, I realize there are so many more options and I don't want to close myself off to just one. I think if my career were long enough and I had the opportunity, I would also want to spend time researching, and I'd also like to work as a coordinator or consultant to help teachers and school develop innovative ways to redesign their curriculum. And who knows - maybe I'll try teaching after all!