The Project Ends…

Well, period one has finished at least. I need to record some initial reflections that I will probably expand upon at a later time.

• Group Work – I have always struggled with developing a group assignment that forces ALL members to participate. During the first phase of the project, that worked perfectly. However, during the last part that we finished today, there were several groups where a number of people just sat there and talked – leaving their team members to do all of the work. Even after I spoke to them about it and threatened a grade drop. And this was my best class; no doubt some of the other classes will be even worse.
• The Wiki – Love the Wiki. The ease of adding and changing pages is amazing. Overall, I love TikiWiki. Plus, teaching the kids to add information took all of five minutes. When I do a more indepth Wiki project during second semester, I think the technical side of it will not hinder the completion of the project. This is the first time that I have used a new technology and it didn’t slow down the process. It absolutely has a tremendous value. For this project, I only provided group logins, for the next one there will be individual logins, which will add to the chaos, no doubt.
• The Content – The underlying idea is to have students making educated choices. While deciding upon the strategies and weaponry do fit into this idea, I was overall not impressed with amount of energy put into the choices. While I bounced around helping the groups, I was also making last minute changes to the Wiki and setting up each group’s section.