Peer Contribution

 Peer Contribution

My natural tendency as a member of a group in face to face situations is to be a co facilitator and/or contributor rather than an actual group leader or PM.  This tendency continued in the online setting.  I had listened to the foot print podcasts which highlighted the need for the group to become engaged as early as possible so as the module began and the first week progressed, I was concerned that the time was slipping by without the group coming together.  I started the ball rolling by posting an invitation to the group suggesting we meet to discuss the learning agreement.  After including a small amendment to the group learning agreement, I agreed to sign off on the final document

We met as a group to discuss how we would progress with the debate task.  With Steve in the role of PM, it was decided that in pairs we would research various aspects of the topic.  Working with Debbie I researched pedagogical approaches and challenges to teaching online and posted findings to the wiki.  As part of the full group I worked on the opening statement prior to posting.  As the debate continued I researched and posted information to some of the questions raised by the opposition.   Mark was a little lost as he was having some technical problems so I directed him to the page in the wiki with the questions and let him know we were researching the answers.  As the debate closed I posted my contributions to the sync.in page for our closing statement.

Our next activity was creating an e-activity as a group.  It was decided to post suggestions for the activity to the wiki and the activity with the most votes would be chosen to progress.  Having posted my suggestion and voted for my choice, our group met to allocate roles and tasks.  Working mostly with Enda we completed the introduction document on the wiki and worked on the specific headings of the tutor guidelines document we had posted in sync.in.  The headings we worked on were the summary, aims, learning outcomes, student motivation, time management information for learners, preparatory materials and activity evaluation.  As time progressed I commented, queried and provided suggestions to other members of the group on the areas that they were working on.   Since Enda was PM for the task we discussed areas of the activity that required clarification and what was required to progress the task to the next stage.  This had the effect of creating informal agendas for the next group meeting and ensuring that the items queried were addressed.

To finalise the task I worked with Enda and Debbie to proof read the student and tutor guideline documents