As I was reflecting about this week's topic, there was one specific part from Boss and Krauss that was extremely applicable in my eyes. In the Technology Focus section on pages 84-87, Boss and Krauss discuss what is needed by the students and the teachers to aid in the management of a project. The authors recommend developing a way to assess the load balance among a team to avoid one student doing too much or too little. This seems to be a constant problem for me year after year. I developed a form that my students complete at the end of projects describing the participation and role of their fellow group members (and themselves). Their comments and my personal observations go into a participation grade for each project. If students are warned ahead of time that this is the procedure we will be following, sometimes the inequalities like Boss and Krauss were describing can be avoided. However, if one or two members do the bulk of the work, at the end it is too late to do anything about it. I'm thinking a mid-way group assessment could be the answer, but all of these assessments just serve in tacking on time to a project.
Boss and Krauss also discussed the technology tools that are ideal to use in a collaborative group setting. The authors started with a discussion on the shared school server and how it can be extremely useful in sharing and storing work files. I am a testament to this fact! I often use the shared drive for technology-based projects that I have my students complete. We are currently working on Civil War movies and I have a toolbox already created for them on the shared drive full of images, music, movie clips, and sound effects for their movies. Creating a "toolkit" like this can really save time. The only problem lies in the fact that anyone can manipulate the shared drive, including students. On several occasions I have had folders magically disappear to find them later within another folder. Accidents can happen with the slip of a mouse, but utilizing the shared drive is definitely the way to go!
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Making sure that everyone does their part in a group project is challenging. I like the idea of doing a mid-way check by surveying group members. This gives group members who have not been doing their part time to contribute more during the second part of the project. It does, however, require more time and work for the teacher.
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