EDUC 639 Research Showcase Blog

Here is a video about my group's research prospectus. Enjoy!

EDUC 639 Wiki Reflection

The First Time I Used the Wiki:

The first time I used the wiki, I created it for our team. I created it knowing the title of our project and that it could be a good place for our group to share contact information. Within the next week, I began working on the wiki for our webibliography, posting textbook choices and articles to review. This was the first time I used the wiki for content-related work, and for purposes of this reflection, I will consider it to be the first time I used the wiki.

Working on the wiki for the webibliography contributed to my knowledge development because it taught me about the project. I did not read any of my peers’ articles or texts, just viewed the titles and reference information to avoid duplicates as best as possible. Working on the wiki both contributed to a positive attitude toward the project and contributed to a negative attitude. Being the creator, I feel as though my team put more pressure on me for everything to exist in the wiki, when they had a lot of control and power to edit all parts of the project. It made me feel stressed because I had to ensure that everything my team expected was a part of the wiki when it needed to be. From the very first time I worked on the wiki, I felt responsible for my entire group’s project, which added a lot of stress to this course. I immediately appreciated that my group was very responsive to emails about the wiki and adding information for the webibliography to it!

A Time in the Middle When I Used the Wiki:

            I used the wiki quite often for this project, checking it almost every other day for the duration of it. I edited the content when our group collaborated for the proposal, which is the part that I will reflect upon here. Our group met in a synchronous online chat to create the proposal for our wiki literature review. I was editing it through out our chat. This role contributed to my knowledge of the project and what was expected for the literature review portion. It helped my attitude because I was eager to work with my classmates and was pleased that everyone was available for the chat, even though not everyone could participate due to technological issues. However, I did become frustrated at times because some of my group members would respond to an idea that was said much earlier in the conversation, and I felt as though I repeated myself several times. We are all very busy, but it is important in a short time frame synchronous communication that we all give our full attention (as best as possible) to keep the conversation concise and to the point.

            With respect to my future career, I think that collaborating to create the proposal showed me how it can be used in group work in grade school. I currently teach kindergarten, and do not think a wiki is appropriate for students. I can see how it can effectively keep group members involved in their projects and provide access from anywhere with an Internet connection. I can see students collaborating on a wiki in class, then working on it from home, and understanding exactly what they are to complete at home because they created the document in class together. This could also prevent issues with transferring documents from one computer or server to the next!

The Last Time I Used the Wiki:

The last time I used the wiki, I felt very accomplished. I spent a ton of time in this course working on it and ensuring that all the seams were sewn as my group members contributed to the project. Overall, a lot of being the group leader consisted of keeping the team organized. I think that part of the organization is due to the volume and amount of work required for a successful project, and the other part due to the fact that I like lists and being organized.

The last time I worked on the wiki contributed to my knowledge about BYOD in a school system. I learned a lot from the research my classmates completed and enjoyed reading their work one final time. I am pleased with how everyone worked together despite varying schedules and feel as though so much of our project relied on these different schedules. It was definitely a stress relief looking over it one final time before determining that our paper was complete!

In a final note, working full time, I am not sure that being a group leader in a project this involved was the best choice for me.  It was very stressful, especially since I had limited access to the Internet as the project neared its due date. I also felt as though when I tried to divide tasks, some group members did whatever they wanted anyways, which did not help the organization of the group. I became very frustrated at this. I know someone has to be the leader, and think I might try being an active group participant next time instead.