Entry – Week #7

– Summarize and report out on the results of the SKS exercise.

I think communication is a big idea from the Start doing category and to improve ours, I am going to make a more concerted effort to initiate communications with the other members of my team by utilizing platforms such as Zoom or Discord. The big takeaway from the Keep category is following the development plan devised by our project leader and continuing to create based on the task allocations. We should stop limiting ourselves in scale as well as not tracking project management together. 

Start Doing Keep Doing Stop Doing
Jennifer More frequent communication, try to adopt a more global perspective of our project creating Focusing so locally and try to adopt a more global perspective of our project
Beigie
-open communication forum with members(text group chat, Discord server, etc.), check in regularly

-have meetings either before or after class to decide on best strategies for activities

-keep being collaborative and making sure everyone is updated with any changes/challenges through email and project Zoom meetings

-keep breaking up and working on different portions of the project such as photospheres, narration

-worrying about problems that haven’t come to pass yet & have no way of solving at the moment (such as running data collection at public libraries locally)

-being limited to only Lehigh Valley issue, think about it in a bigger frame and really focus on the idea of systems

Jacques Organizing my ideas more efficiently

Frequent contact with brunstein

Interviewing people reguralary 

Keeping track of all my results

Procrastinating on small details

Stop overthinking the end goal/big picture of the project

Weilin
1. Further Propaganda

2. Arranging the appointment to the Northampton Prison

1. Rehearsal

2. Contacting different resources

  1. Direct meeting
  2. Putting the audience in a small range
Junior – Improve collaborative work;

 

– Decide on best/most appropriate technology tools for text editing / group homework assignments / and instant(?) communication.

– Establish guidelines for organizing our Google Team Drive (i.e., if every member knows how it should be organized, then every member can do a little to keep it neat and working. ;D

– our interpersonal relationship is great! We should keep it getting better and better! <3

– we should always keep in mind our PI’s needs/wishes. He’s spent lots of time developing the proposal for our group to work on, so why get off track?

– Not having at least a weekly meeting to do ‘project management’ together (e.g., check-in, offer feedback on a given members progress, discuss adjustments when necessary)

 

-Develop a detailed Collaboration Plan for your team clearly articulating your Goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships.

My small, personal goals for this project are learning how to use Unity to develop iVR games and becoming familiar with the coding language involved. The Big Goal of this project is to complete development of the virtual reality headset game and distribute it to non-formal education centers to inform people of the significance of their local  watershed in the Lehigh Valley. We are implementing an alternative style of environmental science education for English language learners and students who may struggle to learn with traditional teaching methods.

While teams have members whose roles will overlap at different times, there are certain established roles that might fit a certain person more than others. Of the three of us in this team, Junior is most likely to be the Implementer and Specialist because he has the most experience with the project and is the one actively doing development work via Unity as well as mentoring new members on how to use the program. Jennifer is the group’s Shaper and Resource Investigator because she leverages her experience in teaching and formal education to bring a new perspective to the project. She also reaches out to collaborative partners for resources such as media/historical photos for our game. Beigie is currently satisfying the role of Plants because she is the newest member and contributes to creative development during meetings with fresh insight and ideas. With time, she will be catching up with the knowledge of how to use Unity and become a fellow Implementer as well.

Team procedures for decision making usually switch between coming to a consensus after discussion or deference to expert in the relevant field. Decision making is done at team meetings where we attempt to give everyone a say because this project is not one which might require more authoritative leadership, and it is important that we allow everyone who is a part of this project to voice their opinions. The process of our meetings is generally going over status updates quickly and then reviewing things that require either editing or decision making; everyone has access to the minutes, but it is usually one person making direct edits while others leave comments. Communication methods involve email, Gdocs, Zoom, and Discord since some platforms are more convenient for different purposes. Whole team meetings occur every two weeks for about 2 to 2 and a half hours. Responsiveness is very high and not a problem for our team because everyone is very on point with checking their emails; at most, it will take a day for a response due to time zone and location differences.

Our interpersonal relationships are getting better and better with frequent communication and trust building exercises such as the activity done in this past CINQ class. Not only are we learning more about each other’s strengths and assets but also different perspectives on the value of technology and things we lack that we can help each other make up for. It will be good to continue improving ourselves and the project by collaborating and giving each other constructive feedback.

 

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