13.1 Group Project
See course Schedule for assignment due dates. (email the link to your instructor)
As a 21st century professional in almost any field, you will be asked to communicate and collaborate online. The next assignment will help you 1) sharpen your online collaborative skills, 2) develop proficiency using technologies for online collaboration, and 3) begin to work with web tools and design concepts.
The scenario:
Your supervisor is unhappy with the level of writing of employees in your department. Knowing that you and a number of colleagues have recently completed a technical writing course (or at least half of one), she has assembled yourself and your colleagues into a technical communication committee. Your committee charge is as follows:
As a 21st century professional in almost any field, you will be asked to communicate and collaborate online. The next assignment will help you 1) sharpen your online collaborative skills, 2) develop proficiency using technologies for online collaboration, and 3) begin to work with web tools and design concepts.
The scenario:
Your supervisor is unhappy with the level of writing of employees in your department. Knowing that you and a number of colleagues have recently completed a technical writing course (or at least half of one), she has assembled yourself and your colleagues into a technical communication committee. Your committee charge is as follows:
- Research current issues and problems with technical communication for employees in your profession.
- Identify and create resources that address those issues and problems.
- Create an online training resource (aka website) that your colleagues will be required to use to improve their writing.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: BUT GROUP PROJECTS ARE AWFUL!!!!! I always have to do all the work, and others get the credit! How can I ensure that I don't end up doing all the work for someone else?
A: Yes. Group projects can be awful. They will more than likely continue to have awful components after you graduate and enter the work world. However, this assignment is carefully structured so that everyone has the opportunity to be involved and practice effective methods of completing online group work. Will there still be slackers? Yes. Will they be successful in this project? No.
Q: I am busy with a job/kids/activities plus school. I took this online class so I could only work on schoolwork on the weekends. How can I complete a group project effectively?
A: Great question. Most of your colleagues in this project are in the same boat. And in my job, I have the same situation...I have classes, children, outside responsibilities, etc. The question will be how you can effectively communicate with your group members to establish a schedule so that all group members' schedules can be accommodated. Practicing this skill now will help in future collaborative endeavors.
Q: BUT GROUP PROJECTS ARE AWFUL!!!!! I always have to do all the work, and others get the credit! How can I ensure that I don't end up doing all the work for someone else?
A: Yes. Group projects can be awful. They will more than likely continue to have awful components after you graduate and enter the work world. However, this assignment is carefully structured so that everyone has the opportunity to be involved and practice effective methods of completing online group work. Will there still be slackers? Yes. Will they be successful in this project? No.
Q: I am busy with a job/kids/activities plus school. I took this online class so I could only work on schoolwork on the weekends. How can I complete a group project effectively?
A: Great question. Most of your colleagues in this project are in the same boat. And in my job, I have the same situation...I have classes, children, outside responsibilities, etc. The question will be how you can effectively communicate with your group members to establish a schedule so that all group members' schedules can be accommodated. Practicing this skill now will help in future collaborative endeavors.
Now, for the details:
- To save time and for consistency, we will all be creating Weebly sites for the final product, and your group will collaborate through your UALR Google Account, the UALR Blackboard account (and any other synchronous software, such as Skype, that you choose to use). This course is hosted on a Weebly site, so you have at least one example of what a site might look like. See this video for tips on how to effectively use Weebly to create your group project and for a basic tutorial on the primary components of Weebly. Note: You will not need to purchase a domain to use Weebly, nor will you need to use a Facebook login to create a Weebly account. The site appears as if these two things are true, but they are not (again, review the video above).
- In Week Eleven, you will focus on creating your group action plan. To prepare, read Chapter 2: Teamwork and Global Issues in Technical Communication. The action plan, which you will submit through a Google Doc shared with all group members and myself, is located on page 22 of the textbook. The "Team Meetings" section should include at least one scheduled, synchronous team meeting using the chat feature in Google Documents (see this video for an overview of how to use the chat feature in Google Docs). You will also need to schedule one meeting with me sometime in Week Twelve where we can chat around your Google Document as well.
- In Week Twelve, in addition to meeting with me, you will work on completing the steps of your project that you identified in your action plan.
- In Week Thirteen, you will complete and submit the resource.
Think About It
Audience Awareness
Your audience for this project is twofold: first, you'll need to impress your supervisor and second, you'll need to create a resource that is user-friendly for your colleagues. Your purpose for this project is to fulfill the charge of the committee to research and identify problems in technical communication, identify and create resources, and create an online training website. In doing so, you will want to communicate clearly, concisely, fluently, and personably and address all of the required elements of the proposal. Consider the elements that you struggled with in the first half of the class. Can you use your own experiences to help design a training module for your colleagues (keeping in mind that "writing" does not just mean "grammatical correctness.")?
Collaboration
The entirety of this project will involve analyzing and responding to the work of others in a professional context. This analysis and response might include encouraging or prodding group members to complete their work and communicating clearly about deadlines, goals, and tasks. A significant part of the grade is also the ability to engage in project planning and management through collaborative writing. Each individual should contribute to the final product, whether through identifying resources, creating resources, or contributing to the creation of the final website.
Information Literacy
You will need to identify currently existing resources that will help your colleagues become more adept at professional and technical writing as well as creating other resources. All existing resources (i.e., websites and activities that you use as components of your final project) need to be given clear credit. Use hyperlinks where necessary (not cutting and pasting in the link -- like this https://www.google.com/ -- but actually using the hyperlink function in Weebly to create a link within the text -- such as this link to Google. See the Weebly tutorial for information about how to create hyperlinks in Weebly.
Digital Literacy
You will be using Google Docs to collaborate with your colleagues and complete the project. Doing so both 1) allows you as space to work, draft and discuss and 2) allows me access to your work so that I can guide and ask questions (if necessary). See the Google video for information about how to collaborate on drafting elements in Google and use comments to discuss sections, if necessary.
Audience Awareness
Your audience for this project is twofold: first, you'll need to impress your supervisor and second, you'll need to create a resource that is user-friendly for your colleagues. Your purpose for this project is to fulfill the charge of the committee to research and identify problems in technical communication, identify and create resources, and create an online training website. In doing so, you will want to communicate clearly, concisely, fluently, and personably and address all of the required elements of the proposal. Consider the elements that you struggled with in the first half of the class. Can you use your own experiences to help design a training module for your colleagues (keeping in mind that "writing" does not just mean "grammatical correctness.")?
Collaboration
The entirety of this project will involve analyzing and responding to the work of others in a professional context. This analysis and response might include encouraging or prodding group members to complete their work and communicating clearly about deadlines, goals, and tasks. A significant part of the grade is also the ability to engage in project planning and management through collaborative writing. Each individual should contribute to the final product, whether through identifying resources, creating resources, or contributing to the creation of the final website.
Information Literacy
You will need to identify currently existing resources that will help your colleagues become more adept at professional and technical writing as well as creating other resources. All existing resources (i.e., websites and activities that you use as components of your final project) need to be given clear credit. Use hyperlinks where necessary (not cutting and pasting in the link -- like this https://www.google.com/ -- but actually using the hyperlink function in Weebly to create a link within the text -- such as this link to Google. See the Weebly tutorial for information about how to create hyperlinks in Weebly.
Digital Literacy
You will be using Google Docs to collaborate with your colleagues and complete the project. Doing so both 1) allows you as space to work, draft and discuss and 2) allows me access to your work so that I can guide and ask questions (if necessary). See the Google video for information about how to collaborate on drafting elements in Google and use comments to discuss sections, if necessary.