About

=Overview= toc

This is a brief description of the collaborative process of Team Three.

Summary
Christine started off our collaborative effort by emailing the group and starting the discussion. We emailed back and forth about the best time for us to meet as a group. Email proved a good choice for us when we were attempting to set up a meeting time. It allowed for each of us to check our schedules independently and keep a record of the conversation.

The group talked together about the best technology to use to communicate collaboratively. Rona and Sean experimented with Chat using the Oncourse tool and then we tried Google+ and used the new Hangout feature. The Google+ Hangout can provide up to nine sessions, but not all team member had access to either bandwidth or a computer that would allow us to use this tool. Chris and Sean then tried Google Chat and this worked, but we thought that it made sense to use the Oncourse Chat tool since everyone was familiar with the tool and everyone had access. What we liked about Oncourse Chat was that it kept a record of the conversation and that we as a group could make decisions together. Chris proposed using this technology to the group and the group agreed.

We set up a time to meet online. Everyone brainstormed about topics that we could use, and we decided as a group that we wanted to create a wiki that was focused on fiction written by celebrities. We decided that each page should highlight an individual celebrity writer.

Once this was agreed upon, we researched to see if there were other wikis or websites that duplicated this idea. We found that there were wikis that focused on celebrities, but none that just focused on their writing. At the end of the first meeting we had each picked our authors. We decided on a tentative format of the pages and allowed enough freedom in the formatting for each wiki page creator to have some design independence. We then decided the next time we would meet and ended the Chat session.

At the next meeting, we reviewed the work that had been completed. We felt that we were on the right track. Members of the group that had not completed their tasks talked about their other commitments, but assured the group that the work would be completed by the deadline.

The group collaborated extremely well together. Everyone listened and respected other opinions and ideas. Everyone gave valuable input that helped create the project. The Oncourse Chat session seemed to work well for the group as a communication tool. We each understood how we could best help the group be successful.