Course Collaboration - Final Week

Well, we did it. The wiki is finished. I had to miss the penultimate Skype chat as I had grand-mother duties. Nigel was not able to attend as well. The other 5 had a very productive chat, deciding on what needed to be done and dividing up work. They actually went well beyond the hour discussing things.L had set up screen sharing, so everyone could see the wiki together and discuss what needed to be done.  I read the chat and caught up with what needed to be done. I was able to work solidly Mon-Weds on the wiki. Everyone is working hard. I added quite a bit on the Wiki Creation page - documenting our collective progress and using quotes from Skype and the DB to substantiate. The others liked this and a few added some bits to it. People are still producing new pages - particularly N and T - although we had agreed not to. S and T are also developing bits on pages they had previously started. There is a good team going between SH, N and S in pulling together the bibliography. In the end, there were seven separate pages for the biblio. L did a fantastic job adding navigation links. I finished adding linking sentences to structure the narrative in the support section. Our Skype chat on the last Saturday was much  more relaxed. We were joking with each other - emoticons all over the place. We all commented on the difference in that we were relaxed. We could see we would finish by the Sunday midnight deadline.

Over the weekend, we kept the Skype chat open while we worked. That proved really productive, we could double check with people on gaps we found. And also we could joke with one another while we worked. It really felt we were working together by having the chat open -  instead of being alone on our computers. We all commented on how the Skype chat really brought us together as a team. That we felt a team using it - rather than working asynchronously.

The final product looks good. A few weeks ago, I wasn't sure we could have produced such a fine wiki. I think it provides a cohesive narrative. And it is a great resource. I think A really drove it and while I may have liked a more creative way of organizing the wiki, I hadn't a clear vision in the start to push that idea. In the end, we all pulled together to produce a good wiki.