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Return
to Table of Contents for More Strategies Learning activities that engage students in
small group or team projects have become a component in many college and
university courses. From science and engineering to economics and art history,
many instructors value the dynamic role that group activities can add to student
learning. At this time, however, few instructors are capitalizing on the
communication technologies that students are using in their everyday lives
(e.g., cell phones, instant messages, the Internet, and Blackberry devices) to
enhance the learning and effectiveness of student teams. While these, and other, technologies have
dramatically changed how students communicate with one another outside the
classroom, most college courses continue to rely only on conventional class
sessions and small group meetings for promoting interactions among members of
learning teams. By integrating technologies into group activities and
assignments, instructors can effectively guide students in the appropriate use
of technology for enhancing team learning. Even with limited guidance,
student teams can apply technologies that improve interpersonal communications,
add flexibility to student schedules, increase student involvement in the
development of team products, make team processes more efficient, and/or
document group interactions. In addition, the introduction of technologies into
team projects assists students in developing valuable skills they can use in
work environments where collaborative projects are often the norm. Here are eight examples of how technologies
can facilitate any course’s small group or team activities: 1. SHARED ONLINE
CALENDARS FOR SCHEDULING TEAM EVENTS. Arranging meetings (either
online or in person) and managing the development of group products can be
challenging for college students who have conflicting schedules. Shared
online calendars offer a solution by helping student teams stay organized and
overcome the challenges of trying to find times when everyone in a group is
available to work on the team assignments. Students can find free online
calendars from such services as Calendars.net, YahooGroups, Visto, or
SuperCalendar. These calendars will give students the tools to post a timeline
of deliverable products for the project (e.g., draft one of the introduction to
be complete by Ron on March 26th), or to share their weekly schedules in order
to more efficiently set team meetings (e.g., Landon and Jae Hoon are busy on
Wednesday afternoons so we shouldn’t schedule team activities on those days).
Shared online calendars can also be useful for the entire class. If you do
not have a calendar feature already available through the college you may want
to sign up for one of these free services to share information (e.g., due dates
for class assignments, your office hours, times for student presentations) with
students throughout the semester. 2. INSTANT MESSAGES
FOR DISCUSSING PROJECT TASKS. Instant messenger (IM) programs
offer students a valuable tool for communicating with other project team
members. Instant messenger programs typically run on student computers and
offer real-time text-based discussion tools. Unlike email, instant
messenger programs keep a list of people and report which ones are presently
online and available to chat. When people from a project team are online,
they can send messages to each other that will be delivered instantaneously.
From quick questions to sharing files, IM programs can add real-time
communications options to a project team. In addition, with newer IM
programs (e.g., Trillian, Vista, Odigo, Easy Message) students can now
communicate with other group members no matter which IM software they use (i.e.,
students who use ICQ instant messenger software can communicate with other
students who use AIM or Yahoo). The advantages of instant messages – over
email, chat rooms, or discussion boards – are the privacy, real-time
interaction, and ease of communication. 3. EMAIL FOR
EXCHANGING DRAFT DOCUMENTS AND OTHER FILES. Students can easily share
draft documents and other files with group members by attaching files to emails.
From Word files to PowerPoint presentations, nearly any files that students
create for their team assignments can be exchanged with other team members using
email. When sharing draft documents via email, students often find it
useful to create a sequence (or chain) of editors. For instance, after
creating the initial draft document, Rebecca may email it to Julie for her
comments and edits. In her email, Rebecca would then indicate that upon
completing her review, Julie should send the next draft of the document to
Sandy, and then Sandy’s draft would go on to Troy who will submit the final
paper to the instructor. Much like a chain letter, in this manner email can be
used to effectively and systematically to organize the work of student teams. 4. MICROSOFT WORD
FOR TRACKING CHANGES, EDITS, AND COMMENTS. Microsoft Word has
many tools for assisting teams in developing their assignments. By using the
“track changes” feature of Word (under Tools), students can share draft
documents and the software will trace the changes (i.e., additions, deletions,
edits) made by each group member, illustrating the individual changes to the
document with different colors for each reviewer. This tool can be quite
valuable to students as they work on collaborative class assignments. In
addition, instructors can benefit from the color-coded changes when evaluating
the individual contributions of group members. In addition, the “merge documents” tools
of Microsoft Word can be of value when student teams are working on group
assignments. The “merge documents” feature allows for multiple
versions of the same file (e.g., Roger’s comments and edits on the draft
paper, along with Jan’s and Jac’s comments) to be combined together into a
new document. This feature can be of great value when several group members each
offer additions, subtractions, or edits to a project document and then want all
of those edits to be merged into a final document for the instructor. For
more information on how to use these and other tools in Microsoft Word you can
visit <http://office.microsoft.com>. 5. CHAT ROOMS FOR
HAVING REAL-TIME TEAM DISCUSSIONS. Chat rooms provide student teams
with the ability to have “real time” discussions regarding team projects in
a completely online format. From discussing the requirements of an
assignment to debating the best presentation format, the conversations students
have in a chat room with other group members can be of value and extend the
learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom or campus. As a benefit,
most chat rooms will also provide transcripts of the team discussions that group
members may later use in the development of project documents. At colleges
and universities using course management systems (e.g., BlackBoard, WebCT,
eCollege) students will have access to chat rooms through the course area. Other
free chat rooms are available to students through services such as ICQ,
YahooGroups, TalkCity, and MSN. 6. YAHOOGROUPS FOR
MAINTAINING SHARED FILES WITHIN A SMALL GROUP. A variety of group
communication tools (such as file sharing, discussion boards, chat rooms, and
shared calendars) are available to students through the YahooGroups website at
no cost. As a result, it is often useful to encourage student teams to use these
resources in both managing their group processes as well as developing team
assignments. Tools like YahooGroups can also provide teams with a storage place
for draft documents and other project files so students with Internet access can
effectively share resources with group members at any time and from any place.
If your college or university doesn’t currently offer an online course
management system (e.g., BlackBoard, WebCT, eCollege) then the development of
YahooGroups area for your courses can be a valuable tool as well. For more
information on YahooGroups you can visit <http://groups.yahoo.com> or
learn more about similar resources at <http://clubs.wanadoo.co.uk> and
<http://groups.msn.com>. 7. DESKTOP
VIDEO-CONFERENCES FOR COMMUNICATING WITH OFF-CAMPUS STUDENTS.
When group members can’t meet face-to-face on campus, desktop
video-conferences can offer a convenient tool for helping student teams hold
meetings and share information. Although most desktop video-conferencing
systems require broadband Internet access (e.g., DSL, Cable modem), the cost and
technology skills required to have online video-conferences has been reduced
significantly in recent years. Many desktop video systems are now available for
less than $50. For an excellent article with more information on effective
strategies for using video-conferences in your courses you can visit <http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow6/nov98/index.html>. 8. CELL PHONES FOR
HOSTING TEAM CONFERENCE CALLS. Cell phones are a technology
that most students use everyday in their personal lives, and with conveniences
such as 3-way calling and text messages the modern cell phones can offer student
teams valuable tools for communicating with one another. Group conference
calls, for example, can offer student teams the flexibility and conveniences
often necessary to ensure that all group members can adequately participate in
the development of team products. Using the 3-way calling features built
into many modern cell phones (or even more sophisticated conference calling
plans for additional participants in the conference call), student teams can
effectively hold meetings and make import team decisions at almost any time. A second useful tool available with many
cell phones is text messaging. Similar to the real-time communication tools of
instant messenger programs on the computer, text messages are a popular tool for
students to communicate using text with a cell phone. These typically short text
messages often do not cost as much as telephone calls and can be sent to either
one or multiple cell phone users. For student teams these tools can
provide another technique for communicating with one another outside of the
traditional classroom, and for instructors many cell phone providers will offer
Internet based tools for sending text messages to cell phones if you do not feel
comfortable writing the message using your cell phone. As you can see, today’s technologies offer
student groups the flexibility that is often necessary to work effectively as a
team. In creating team assignments it can therefore be helpful to
integrate the technologies that many students commonly use outside of the
classroom into their group projects. For example, when assigning teams for
a course project you may want to require that each team start a YahooGroups area
where they can share their calendars, distribute files, and have online
discussions. You may even want each group to provide you with access to
the YahooGroups area so you can monitor their progress. As another option,
you may want to hold office hours once a week in an online chat room in order to
encourage students in the class to utilize similar technologies in their
studies. Not only will online office hours add flexibility to your
schedule, but it may give students who have to work off-campus additional
opportunities to interact with you throughout the semester. The valuable tools included in Microsoft
Word can also become part of your everyday teaching routine. From
providing feedback on papers using the “track changes” feature to requesting
that small groups “merge” their draft documents together before submitting
them, you can promote the use of technology among your students. Many
students will value the opportunity to apply technology to their efforts in
college courses. The integration of technologies into small group activities can
help students stay organized, share files, manage time, communicate with group
members, document group processes, submit team products, and/or create
comprehensive online portfolios. These are great skills for succeeding in
college and for excelling in the technology-oriented work world our students
will soon be entering. --Ryan Watkins, Faculty, Educational
Technology Leadership, Ryan Watkins is an associate professor at
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