Collaborative Projects on WikiEducator: August 10-28, 2009

Hello Everyone:

First day back from a week's vacation. I have, though, been following the discussions.

Nellie's questions:

1. How did you get involved in collaborative projects?
2. How are you collaborating?
3. What tools or environments are you using?
4. What is keeping you involved in collaborating?
5. How do you envision the future of collaborative projects?

1. On line collaborative projects, other than SCoPE I'm not. It's an interesting concept and I'm interested in dipping a toe in these waters. My collaborative projects are all the old-fashioned kind (F2F).

2. I'm collaborating by sharing ideas, resources, coaching, discussing.

3. Tools. Mostly the local coffee shop on campus.

4. Why Collaborate? Simply put, it makes me better at what i do. I know my strengths and I also know my weaknesses and so collaborating with folks who help balance my contribution to a project really helps me and really helps the project. Also, I learn from others, and if there's a better/more efficient way of doing something, I'm all for it. Collaboration also expands my professional network.

5. Envisioning the future: I seldom think of technology first (I'd much rather chat over tea) and so my vision of the future would include helping people become better collaborators...to see the benefits, to learn some collaboration skills. Collaboration works best then there are clear project goals and people with the "people" and project skills on the team. Choosing the right team is very important, although we don't always have that option. I'm preaching to the converted, here, of course. Some of the discussion over the last couple of weeks has been around how a team functions.

Off to catch up on a lot of accumulated email. Cheers, Chris (Horgan)