Planning the design of an e-learning course by Deborah C. Hurst and Janice Thomas the group should consider five principles:
1. The deadlines must be met. This project was important to all.
2. Whoever was best able to lead on a particular task would do so.
3. Each member would contribute 150% to this project, and endeavor not to let the other team members down.
4. Team members would raise a flag (let others know about tasks not likely to get done on time).
5. Team members would pitch in to complete work as needed.
This week the five recommendation for effective teamwork were the most useful for me:
• Work hard in the beginning to develop a trusting environment. Without it, nothing will work. Trust builds as relationships build in online teaming, and therefore must be present in online team development.
• Expect shifting of roles and leadership. Sometimes the teacher will be the taught and the leader must learn to follow.
• Employ as many forms of interaction as possible in the initial phases of the collaboration. If possible, face-to-face is probably the ideal way to kick off. However, most of us do not have this luxury, and there is growing evidence about and experience with online kick-offs, such as the learning module discussed above.
• Open communication is critical to any team endeavor. Determining how to encourage it in your particular online world is your most critical task.
• Employ good project management practices. Agree how you will work together. Plan the work. Assign responsibility. Monitor progress. Celebrate success.
I came to the conclusion that e-learning needs even more communication that the regular learning process. One reason is the distance and information holes are more easy to come and because there is no face to face relationship it is not so easy to make yourself fully understandable, understand others they way they want to, explain and re-explain yourself.
Also it is important to find suitable environment for a group work or course. There should be just enough facilities, but not too many. Also it would be good, if the environment is already familiar to all who have to work with it.
At the time this assignment should have been finished I had contacted with other team members and changed contacts.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Five principles presented here are very relevant and hopefully every group member follows them.
ReplyDeleteI very much like the first point for the effective teamwork (also the others are important). Trust is an important factor in an online environment and this is a challenging task to achieve. Visibility and being present in a group work would support a lot to gain other's trust on you. People very often forget to communicate in online environments and take their present self-explanatory...
I agree with you.
Terje