Since early in week one, team Durian has kept in close contact using a number of different internet services and communication mediums. We have consistently aimed to share responsibilities and participation levels evenly across the group and have been fortunate in maintaining constant contact and input from all randomly generated members designated to our team. The five team members have intuitively worked with each others strengths,with each contributing, evenly, fairly and consistently from the outset.
A major issue we have continually faced while completing our group assignment has been collaborating across multiple time zones. This has resulted in an ongoing need for careful planning and polling amongst our team members to ensure suitable meeting times were achieved for all participants.
First contact was made via the Durian Discussion Board on the Curtin network. The five participating members made contact and a consensus was reached to utilise Skype for our initial meeting as it allowed both real time communications and the hosting of group meetings.
Through Skype we were able to begin working towards assignment two, while supporting and engaging each other regarding assignment one. Team Durian held four weekly meetings using Skype and it remains an important tool for synchronous and asynchronous communication and point of contact. Members not only worked together and supported each other regarding assignments one and two, each participant has also taken varied roles and responsibilities onto themselves in a continued effort to contribute and add value to the group and the work being completed. All members participated and contributed evenly and fairly throughout this time.
After reviewing our chosen Web 2.0 tools, team Durian focused and looked at different web services that individual members felt would be suitable for our collaboration work on assignment two. After testing these products a vote was held and an agreement was reached to focus our future work and communications through Wiggio. This proved to be a wise and successful group decision since we were able to not only continue meetings and real time communications, we were also able to begin collating data and organizing how and where we would complete the group assignment.
At this time it is worth mentioning the actions of all members as we prepared our draft copy of assignment two. We began by brainstorming the central ideas and themes that our work would focus on. We then researched and presented links, data, articles and ideas that we had uncovered individually. At this point we each chose an important element from our formulated proposal on which we could work. This work was then presented and uploaded to our chosen platform, making up the major portion of assignment two.
Each member of our team was committed to producing work of a high quality and we were all able to work both individually and as a team towards our group assignment. While everybody contributed evenly and consistently towards our work regarding the group assignment, a special mention of each member’s contributions in other areas is also worth noting:
Alan Beazley – Chaired all Durian meeting to this date. Alan appeared to apply himself to this role easily allowing the group to conduct both productive and focused meetings. Alan also presented large portions of his work, along with resources and articles for use in assignment two.
Hans Dusink – Established Wiggio account and supported all members as we acclimatized to this service, acting as a point of contact for our group. Hans also presented numerous links and information for all Durians to access while continually engaging with all members to ensure a full consensus was reached.
Laura Peacock – Gathered and researched the bulk of the communal data, links and information available to our group. Laura was a driving force when structuring how we would present our work; she also found suitable graphics for all members’ work and produced the slideshow that is included in our presentation.
Jo Sinadinovic – Built the chosen platform and coordinated our group’s use and integration of our work onto this site. Jo responded to all of our requests when designing the Wiki and was able to create a platform that all members were happy with and appreciative of. She also posted up numerous links, articles and other resources for the group to use.
Josh van de Scheur – Worked on the Attention and Information Economy sections of the presentation. He pointed out that we would need to concentrate on the flow of information through the final presentation. Josh also commenced the group journal document.
Although unusual ,Team Durian was able to complete the group project without any drama. We put this down to each having experience in operating in groups in our own lives. Whilst we had differences of opinion about various aspects of the project, we were able to discuss and come to an acceptable consensus without feeling that any member was being "stepped on".
