I haven't been reflecting in this blog because the last few weeks have been busy with personal matters. A visit from my sister, my daughter in her first professional play and then a week ago setting off for an 8 week backpacking tour of SE Asia, and also a visit from another friend. I have had to prioritise my work on the online course I am running and just intermittently checking up on the collaborative work to be done on the wiki for the course where I am a student.
A has continued to work diligently on the wiki. She is using a model of a digital essay and is focussing on the content, references etc. As an essay it is excellent work but I feel that her dominance in the group is shaping the wiki. Some others have now added content - T, L, Sh and S. But it is more of an abbreviated form. I am just dipping in and adding a few bits here and there. But I feel I have not been able to be engaged in the same way. Somehow I feel lethargic - I feel that I am not working nearly as hard as I have on other modules.
However, up to this week, you cannot say that we are all collaborating. We are all working on our separate bits. This week, I have engaged more on the course. There was talk about needing to have a synchronous meeting to discuss the wiki. I saw it was difficult to organize on the discussion board, so I set up a Doodle schedule - posted the links on the discussion board and it worked. We are meeting on Skype Saturday morning. I also raised on the discussion board, the issue of what kind of a resource we are creating, the balance of multi-media and text, that A's model was of a digital essay -which was fine but that we need to have a discussion of what we want to look at. I also posted the assessment details and posted a draft agenda. I feel I was more active in organizing the group this week and everyone responded positively. I noticed however, that there is one member -L - who has not said anything or posted anything on the wiki.
Anyway, A came up with a suggestion for collaborating on a technology page in the wiki - i.e. how a certain technology relates to some aspect of what we separately have been focussing on. Again everyone responded positively.
I think A is conservative in terms of the form of the wiki - she didn't do the Digital cultures or Digital Futures course. I think my expectations have been raised by them which is why I feel disappointed in this course. However, it is interesting in terms of the difficulties of collaborating on a wiki. I think having no guidance or content or form is too extreme for a group who have never worked together before.
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