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- I have created a second page (Challenges & Strategies) where we can work on the summary. You can access it via the menu on the left of this page.

- Thanks for figuring this out, Allison! Did you send invitations or the url to Bill and Judith as well? If not, I think we should as they will want to follow our process in pulling this together. I think that we should focus on two or three challenges, and the ones below look good to me. I am also new to this kind of forum, but I'm thinking that we might want to keep this first page for messages and put a link to another page or pages where we produce the summary document. Until it's time to submit, I'll keep my text in this colour. I would be happy to write up the challenge regarding environmental issues and post it for editing. Thanks again! Peg

A chance to collaborate...

This Masters program is really forcing me to reflect on traditional practises. I must admit, this is the first wiki I have ever participated in, let alone create. I think the appeal of a wiki can be that we can edit our work, and that​ the stream of discussion might be a bit clearer. Often in a discussion forum, one asks a question and gets an eventual response, but two other people have contributed in the interim and the conversation thus becomes disjointed.

So, as I see it, here are the challenges we have discussed thus far:

1. Technology Issues - site navigation, chat and discussion scheduling...

2. Environmental Issues

3. Academic Issues - There is a marked difference between the language used in everyday activities, and the language required of a Masters student. From my personal experience, I find it more difficult to immerse myself in an academic context whilst sitting on a sunny patio. I feel like the mindset would be easier to achieve sitting at an academic institution...

So what's next? Should we expand on these issues? Start new ones? Help!

**---

Thanks Allison for getting a discussion forum going outside of Moodle. This is new for me as well.

I will go with the olive drab for text color. It seems having something as simple as different colored text helps to figure out what each person is saying.

I am not totally sure of how far in depth we need to go with this.....**

//"Each team will post a summary of the potential challenges they identified and the strategies they suggest for managing those challenges."//

**I think we are almost there? Should we just reiterate what we stated in the forum on that one concise page to the left? <---**


 * Ryan**

I agree, Ryan – we have generated some good ideas on the Moodle board. Tomorrow I’ll take a look at our conversation there and write up the challenge regarding Environmental Factors (such as time, support from work and family, and so on) as well as any strategies that we suggested in that area. I’ll then post it on the “Challenges” page here and it will be open for editing by our team. Another member of the group might want to choose one of the other challenges listed above and do the same. Once we get the challenges set out, I think it will be easier to focus our thoughts and to see what is missing. I’ve worked in groups before where different coloured type helped to keep the “conversation” clear, so maybe it will work for us as well. I’ll try to have my post up by mid-morning, but I’m out from 11:30-1:30 so it may be the afternoon. I don’t know if the summary is supposed to be presented in any particular format (?) At this point I’ve been thinking that I might write the challenge out in paragraph form, and then add the strategies in bullet form (which would make it easy for others to come in and add a strategy without having to insert it into the body of a paragraph.) As always, I’m open to suggestions. Peg

Hi Everyone! I'm pleased to see this is working - turns out it's pretty easy to set one of these up! I like Peg's idea of generating a paragraph on a challenge, and then the bullets for strategies. I'm willing to do one of them as well. But my question is - which one? I initially listed Technology and Academic issues...which one is more prevalent in this course? I'm struggling with being in the right mindset for an academic course (currently sitting in my bathrobe while my son plays trains on the floor), but I know the Moodle component of this online course is an issue for most of us - I had to buy a notebook and pen to try and figure things out old school! :)

Thoughts? Allison

Hi Allison, Why not choose the area that is most meaningful to you personally? It's often easier to collect our thoughts around something that we connect with. I don't think it matters which topic you choose. That will give us two challenges; we can go with that or - if someone else from the team wants to write up the third challenge - we can address all three. This assignment has somewhat open guidelines. It will help us to figure out how to work and post as a group, how to identify challenges in online learning and take us beyond that confused or overwhelmed stage by moving us into a proactive space of creating strategies. If we do all that, I think we'll be in good shape.... and that makes speaking to the challenges that resonate with us personally a good approach.

One other unconnected thought... if we had a message board like this in the future, I wonder if it would make more sense to put current posts at the top rather than the bottom (more like an email response than a linear document.) When team members come to the Wiki page, the newest post would always be there right on the top. It's not important, of course, and either way is fine... it's just a personal observation (based on my own learning/working style) as I get used to using this format. Others might feel differently.

Have a great day everyone... Peg

Hi again, I've posted a draft on environmental factors to the "Challenges" page. After going over the postings on Moodle, I can see that we need to generate more strategies in this area, so jump in! Also, please feel free to edit the introductory paragraphs. I do not have time right now to cite the Boyd article properly and I'm not sure how to cite the comments from our team. If anyone is good at this, please feel free to do so! I'll be back online later. Peg ​

Hello again! I have decided to address "academic challenges", as I have been really struggling in my attempts to get into an academic mindset. I think it may be the nature of a online course that is giving me trouble; I think it would be a lot easier if I were sitting inside an academic institution. So I've added to Peg's page of Challenges and Strategies, but came up short on the strategies...any ideas?



Hello Again,

I will take on the Technology Challenges, and enter ideas based on thread in the Moodle forum. Feel free to edit / hack up what ever you like as we are a team. Should be up sometime tomorrow AM. (EDIT: The WIKI should be up sometime tomorrow AM, as apposed to me who usually sleeps-in on summer break :) )

I am glad to be working in a group that is so forthright. :D

Ryan**

Hi Allison, I cannot find your "academic challenges." Are you sure that they posted properly? Peg

Sigh...I guess they didn't. I have been having some problems with my wireless network, so perhaps I thought it saved and it didn't. Ironically, my update on the home page saying that I had finished my challenge got posted! I guess this is a valuable lesson learned - always type significant contributions in Word, then you can cut and paste it into the wiki, blog, etc... That way, if something goes wrong, you still have a copy! It's a shame, too...it was actually not bad! :)

Allison

Like the rest of you I'm keeping a 'watching' brief on the other teams postings and have a few ideas myself, especially about environmental and technical issues. There is a danger here of us going over the the same subjects and research twice (three primary headings and five participants!) so I am waiting to respond to initial postings. I did find the Boyd paper big on generalities and low on empirical detail. That said, it does leave space for us to inject our own ideas viewpoints. Tony


 * Tony,

I accidently pasted over your comments in the summary page. Do you have it saved? Or does anyone have a backup? I am flustered now sitting in my schools office using a public computer. Sorry about this,

Ryan **

I have it! I was trying to edit the "Challenges" page earlier and Tony's work kept disappearing (I wonder if this is what happened to Allison's work as well?) Fortunately I noticed it was gone before I saved the changes. I cut and pasted some of the work into a word document; we should probably all save our own comments. (There must be a way to make sure that new comments don't over-ride old ones, but I'm not sure how...) After that I was called away from the computer, but I'll replace Tony's comments now. Peg

Ok, I am continuing to learn.... I replaced Tony's paragraph but then I also took a look at the menu across the top of the page. If you go into "History" you can go back and look at a page as it was before it was changed. This means that we should be able to look back to previous versions in order to reclaim any lost work. :-) Peg

Tony, I put your paragraph back onto the challenges page - although it disappeared and I had to replace it again (!) I have no idea what it is that I'm doing incorrectly. But when I last saved the page, it was there! I took part of your comments and inserted them into the write-up. Please take a look and see what you think. If you want to leave them there, you can pull out the strategy pieces of your paragraph and add them to the bullet points. However, I do see that Susan has left a message under the "discussion" tab where she offers to write about isolation and engagement. I will leave it up to you to chat with her and to decide if you would like to leave your comments where they are or move them. Thanks, Peg

In looking back at our work on the "Challenges" page, I think that we have noted the challenges well, but could do with some more attention to the strategies portion. Please feel free to make the strategies a collective endeavour and let's see if we can come up with some creative and applicable ideas :)

I have taken the word document edited by Susan, and posted it back to the Wiki (with some challenges!) I have placed it on a new page called "Final Draft" I have tried to make sure that the in-text citations are correct, but feel free to correct me because I'm not that familiar with APA. __We also need to put references at the end__: I think we need one for Boyd and one for Atherton?
 * Hi everyone,**


 * Allison -** I think we crossed over on editing work. Sorry about that. I was working from the word doc that Susan sent, not from the "Challenges" page of the Wiki. Everyone should feel free to go into the final draft and edit anything that they would like to see changed in preparation for submitting it.


 * Tony and Ryan** - Susan kept your discussion regarding isolation in the body of the document. Do you want to leave it there? If so, the isolation quote should be taken out of the first section, as it is in there twice.


 * Ryan -** I lost the font for the title of your section and could not get it back.... help (!)


 * Ryan** - Susan and I both had emails that we sent to you bounce back. I'm not sure if there's a glitch there?


 * Closing comments:** Do we want them? Or should we just leave it as is?


 * Thanks everyone!** It's been great working with all of you. I hope the above doesn't sound pushy... I'm just trying to think about the loose ends. __We should decide on who should post the final version (and when) so that we all have time to make any final changes.__


 * Susan -** Thanks so much for the editing work you did. Best wishes to you and your family. Peg

Hi everyone! The final document looks fantastic, and I am very impressed by our work! I had emailed Susan to tell her that I would try and update the strategies for my piece in an effort to reduce her work load, but I think you beat me to it, Peg - and I think your version is superior! I think our discussion is good as is...unless someone is desperate to write a closer? - Allison