Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Hi everyone. We would like to invite you to participate in our OER – a Wix site on Mobile Collaboration to Enhance Working, Learning, and Playing. Our intended audience consists of adult professionals who are looking to implement or improve mobile collaboration in their lives, whether it be their workplace, education, or the arts. Please take some time this week to explore the site using either a mobile device, a desktop device or both. We have several different opportunities for you to use mobile collaboration to interact with our site and would like you to choose at least two of these collaborative discussions to explore and get involved. We would appreciate your feedback on site content, design, mobility, and its functionality as a resource for you, so please leave your comments here in the blog.
Alexei, Esther, Jen, Lori, and Shirley
Nice resource, with a little something for everyone. I particularly like your use of various collaborative technologies for feedback, so I literally HAVE to try each out! I hope it’s OK to keep playing with this and giving feedback after Week 5 — there’s SO much good stuff here! I’m currently teaching online for the first time, and while it’s going well, I get the sense that students aren’t necessarily as engaged and connected as when I’m at the podium, so your topic is very timely for me.
Hi Group 5
Well done putting together your project – I’m sure you did not have a lot of time going first and having the A1 looming.
I liked your various provocations, using an audio clip or video and then following up with a question for users to respond to. For me, these were the central parts of your project.
If I could humbly make some suggestions for you to consider next time.
I wonder if for next time you could be more purposeful with your intentions with the project? I felt like this project has a lot of information, but it wasn’t purposeful. I felt like the intentions of the project weren’t clear.
One thing that stood out for me in the instructions for the assignment was to aim for high quality of engagement and low quantity. I feel busy professionals, particularly teachers, would have a hard time reading through your project, as it seemed too long/text heavy and too general in nature.
Finally, I found some of the instructions for the questions we were to answer too vague, particularly the collaborative story in Vegas.
Overall though, I thought your project did a good job of getting me to think about mobile collaboration.
Respectfully,
Toby
Hey there Team!
Well done on the adaptation and delivery of this week’s topic! The website was straightforward to navigate and not at all buggy. I had a fun time engaging with the content and enjoyed the interactive resources that were included. Howard Rheingold’s ted talk on way-new collaboration had me hooked. Thank you for the amazing list of resources in Mobile collaboration in Education settings. I am eager to explore each and find which would be beneficial to apply to an ICT or blended model of learning. I do appreciate the effort put into avoiding overwhelming the reader with information and allowing us to inquire further into each of the collaborative applications at the bottom of the education page.
Hello Team W05,
Thank you to all of you for sharing such an engaging and informative OER with us. The online collaborative tools are the need of the hour with ever increasing information on the web and with the present pandemic situation. My students use collaborative tools like Discord to connect and get help with the problems they face in their projects.However after reading your moveable feast, I came to know about other collaborative tools which students as well as teachers can use effectively. It was fun to use Jamboard as it was quite appealing and user friendly. The memory maps, flow charts and relationship among entities in the Jamboard will really be fun to use with the students. Also, the platform for your OER was really user friendly and interactive with rich multimedia content.
Great job done!
Hi Team 5
What great research! Thank you for providing so many different avenues of thought. I especially thought the medicine part was a great use of your expertise and it make me wonder about similar applications of mobile collaboration in education. I have never used Wix before but I love the way the transitions made everything easier on mobile devices.
My school district uses Microsoft Teams as the standard platform, and it is so much stronger than I expected. The amount of communication and the ability to reach students and coworkers makes a huge difference in moving content and collaborating with others. However, it seems like that teams is trending towards a hub where word documents and OneNote could be shared amongst the students and staff. Do you think there is any future in learning hubs in collaborate practices?
During your research, have you ever ran into any possibilities for using apps like Discord as a collaboration tool? I have students that uses it to collaborate on homework and to chat, and it seems like there’s a lot of usability in that it allows for voice calling, sharing documents (via links), adding in bots that manage time, etc. It’s mainly used as an add on to video game streaming or group plays, but I can definitely see some potential for more educational based endeavors.
There is almost too much to be considered with mobile collaboration for work, for learning, and for play, and maybe a singular focus on one of those categories would have been easier. You nicely organized a broad array of current options and didn’t go overboard with points of interaction. Your focus on mobile collaboration at work, paired with examples from our peers, was the strongest area in my opinion. There are good reasons for overlap with the professional collaboration tools and their educational uses. Workplace collaboration tools like Mural, Miro, G-Suite, Microsoft Teams, LucidChart, and Zoom are all exemplary. A 6-10 minute constraint makes it impossible to define them, use them, and discuss them in all three categories of collaboration, though it does seem to draw attention to so many ways of getting jobs done.
I liked your small callout on the Education page to web accessibility. Web accessibility is not only important to support all learners; it offers great ROI too when a site is searchable (SEO) and mobile friendly. People of all ages and abilities who have access to a site can be consumers of OER and users of ecommerce when we do our jobs with inclusivity in mind. I hope that some of the additional resources in my comment on Esther Yang’s post about “Mobile Technology to Empower Students with Special Needs” helps to broaden the category of accessibility and the usability of tools that test for accessibility. If a site is not accessible, it will not be readily mobile either.
Esther Yang’s post:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec523/2021/02/07/mobile-technology-to-empower-students-with-special-needs/#comment-3822
Thank you, Ben
Your understanding of our work and your collaboration to empower students with special needs tells me that the target has been hit. Our primary objective was to describe the mobile collaboration and it is application. Additionally, we also wish to promote discussion about the subject. Thank you for your feedback and collaboration!
Great work, team! Your site contains a great deal of relevant background information and interesting ways to keep your audience engaged. You covered a wide range of areas for mobile collaboration and it was worthwhile to learn more about this topic from those differing viewpoints. While I did enjoy exploring the site, I found it contained a lot of reading, as well as some long videos, which made it time-consuming to digest. I found the visuals, such as diagrams, and short videos that you included were more effective in keeping me engaged with the material.
Thank you for helping me to become much more knowledgeable about mobile collaboration!
Thank you, Wendy for your response.
I agree with you that the length of an instructional/informational video and the amount of reading are critical to grab and keep viewers’ attention. I have personally learned during this OER project that identifying what your audience needs, how to effectively address it and how to get their attention (and keep it) is the key to success when creating mobile informational contents. It is important to be simple and clear and try not to cover too much in one single video/reading passage. Thanks for you input!
Hello Team 5! It is amazing work and full team collaboration. At my age (I honestly believe that I am young), it is easy to get lost in translation because of the explosion of mobile technology. It seems that I am learning on an hourly bases as compared to a weekly bases. Your collaborative work team 5 project has kicked started some developmental ideas for my students and teachers. My belief as an educator is to help create dreams and assist in developing them into reality. Your project is well organized and easy to navigate. The information and research conducted with your project is creating a sense of awareness needed in my school before introducing mobile technology. Long story short, each school needs to research mobile technology and collaborate with staff, students and parents before moving ahead; however at the same time the need for mobile technology in Siksika Nation High School is needed asap. So the question I pose is, how to introduce a productive relevant mobile technology into a school now?
Your webpage delivers information for all aspects of education and the workplace. I also love the idea of mobile collaboration across the spectrum of platforms, places, people and cultures. I came to understand how technology has changed the way we meet, speak and share experiences; however, technology has not allowed people across the globe to comprehend why people think the way they do. The information being transmitted to millions of people blocks the urge to understand the essence of human nature. For example, there are hundreds of First Nations in North America and the introduction of technology has allowed people to connect and share stories. The problem with this type interaction is fast and brief with no explanation. The idea of collaborative technology can allow individuals to come together and allow that genuine human interaction. Since taking the MET program, especially ETC 523, I have learned to develop ideas and meaning discussions with people from all walks of life using mobile technology.
Great job Team 5! I loved it!
Hi Tyrone! Thankyou for your feedback:) I agree with you that alongside of introducing the theories of how mobile collaboration can help across different contexts, there needs to be a solid framework for how to implement it right now. That is definitely an area that we could have investigated more in our OER. I like how you differentiate between mobile technologies and mobile technology for collaboration. I agree with you that without the collaborative aspect, we are not truly seeing/listening to each other, but maybe only experiencing how someone might choose to portray themselves. That being said, I think that collaborative apps that aren’t intuitive or are hard to use, may also block creativity and expression. Good luck on your OER in the future!
Great work team! I really enjoyed the interactive elements for each page (a few of them out group was already planning to use, so hopefully there isn’t burn out by week 8!).
I didn’t quite understand the storyboard interactive in the Arts and Design section – I understood the directions but when I clicked on the link, I was confused with what people had included. I will have to revisit it as I went in mid-week …
Great work everyone. I always love going first but it can be stressful, so I’m impressed with everything that you put together!
Hi Meg! Thanks for your comment:) The storyboard interactive in the Arts and Design area is a collaborative story plan for a transmedia story, or story told over many different platforms. If you want to join, all you have to do is add to the story and write what social media content you would create (reflecting your part of the story), and what platform you would choose to post it too. It’s definitely a fictional plan, but just an activity to show how social media can be used for artists to collaborate on a creative venture. Good luck on your presentation in week 8!
Hey group 5,
Great job with your OER. I liked a few of the activities quite a bit, like FlipGrid and Jamboard, I haven’t used jamboard before but I can see all sorts of applications for it in the classroom, so thanks for that! I thought you guys had a good blend of text, visuals (eg lists and infographics), and video. I did try this OER on both my desktop PC and my mobile phone and I would say the group did a good job of mobile-friendly design and implementation!
Thanks Johannes – we appreciate your insight on the OER’s discussion boards as well as the feedback here. I’m looking forward to seeing what others are coming up with for next week. – Lori
Hi Group 5:
I had to come back and read more for your movable feast. The information that you provided was so interesting. I really enjoyed participating in your activities for every section. The content I found to be very engaging for an online audience. I do believe that your moveable feast has contributed to my learning experience. Thanks Group 5 for creating the first moveable feast. It is not easy when you are the first ones to present.
Hi Brittany, thank you; thanks to everyone.
Reading your comments is a learning journey too. Your comments are so precious because they came from your practical experiences, which makes us think more deeply about the topic. I think this is the charm of mobile collaborative learning.
Great work! All the different collaboration tools were fun and engaging. I really enjoyed the variety of media uses to present the information as it helped keep me engaged and interacted with your amazing website.
(I don’t feel comfortable giving flipgrid access to my email info so I’ve posted my answer below)
What strategies do you have to encourage students to engage in collaborative interactions using mobile technologies?
-Keep it simple
-Using technology to promote teamwork and collaborative projects, linking online students to in-classroom learners via the LMS software provided through the school.
-Establish clear group goals
Great work again!
Thanks for your response, Michael.
We tried to demonstrate various ways to collaborate using mobile technology and showcase some examples of collaborating apps in our presentation. I am glad that you enjoyed our OER site.
I completely agree with you that keeping collaborative activities simple and setting clear goals and expectations for students are crucial elements to successful mobile collaborations.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comments and for finding a way to engage in the Flipgrid on your terms. Your point about having to give your email to Flipgrid does bring up the question of whether this is an appropriate tool for students to use when there may be privacy issues. Teachers may want to at least consider the age of their students.
Lori
I like how your OER features several different apps and websites for your interactive activities. This is a great opportunity for us to learn how they work if we have never used them before and gives us ideas for how we might want to use them to engage our own students in the classroom.
Thankyou Erin! We really appreciate everyone sharing all of the apps and websites they have used to collaborate with others. Many of them I have never heard of, but am now excited to try.
Wow Group 5.
I am so impressed with how well your Movable Feast works on my Samsung S9. I am going to try to tinker with some of the settings later today. Your content is very enriching and design so user friendly. You have really set a high bar for the remainder of the class. Great job!
Thanks Brittany. It’s great to get feedback about the mobility part. It’s one thing to design something on a desktop, then to try to make sure it also works well and flows on the mobile devices as well. There are definitely some drawbacks to using Wix, but its ability to let you design for both types of devices at the same time is a plus.
Hi Week 5 Team!
Great work on your OER! I really appreciated that you’ve included links to so many great collaborative tools, it’s really helpful as educators to have a good educational technology list. In terms of your website design, I really like that you’ve included many different kinds of multimedia, which made browsing through the website more interesting. For example, there was text reading, podcast, infographics, and videos.
This was my first time using Flipgrid and Jamboard! I thought these were great tools for teachers to use to help encourage more collaborative work between the students. Thanks for introducing them to us! Here’s a website which gives some ideas for using Flipgrid in the classroom: https://www.edutopia.org/article/9-new-ways-use-flipgrid-classroom
The first one I think is a great idea is using Flipgrid’s new AR feature, students can make a video for a book review after reading the book, the teacher can create a QR code that links to the video and print it off to attach to the book. Other students can then scan the QR code and read other students’ book reviews before deciding on reading the book.
Emily Chen
Hi Emily. Flipgrid is definitely becoming my new favourite collaboration app. The site has added to its versatility since I first used it last spring, with participants being able to add text comments as well as video. I particularly like how the teacher can control what types of responses are allowed, depending on the maturity of their students. The link you provided suggests several ways to use Flipgrid that hadn’t occurred to me, and I’m excited to try them out!
Hi Team W05,
Nice job! I admit that the more I see the available platforms out there, the more I like Wix. It may be that I have mainly used this one app, and so it “feels” more familiar and thus comfortable. I thought this tendancy towards the familiar was interesting given the cross-platform opportunities you embedded in your presentation.
Your text raises concepts to reflect upon – how do we collaborate with the constant evolution of new technologies? There really isn’t time to fully master any one application before a new technology renders it near obsolete.
I enjoyed participating in the discussions. One thing I would have liked to see is my final comments. Aside from the Arts&Design collective story, the submit button on the other pages sent my comments into an invisible storage site. Just as the instant vote-results offer instant gratification for participation, I have become habitualized to seeing my “mark” immediately after making it.
Thank you for the great feast!
-Evelyne
Thanks for the great feedback Evelyne! We have changed the comments section in the discussion areas of our OER. Now if you post you can now see your contributions in the feed.
Hi again,
I am coming back periodically to read more about the various collaboration apps. Thanks for the resources!
I still do not see the posts I made early in the week (workplace & future). Will you be able to post all the comments that occurred before you switched to showing the comments?
Thank you!
I really enjoy the way you have embedded collaboration tools into your presentation of the information. It’s great to see first hand how they work and what the options are. Each tool facilitates a different type of interaction best, which is clearly important to keep in mind when facilitating mobile collaboration. Unfortunately, I couldn’t access the Jamboard platform (it says I was denied access). But even that hiccup draws attention to how even the best tools can trip up our attempts to connect in unexpected ways!
Moreover, I thought your exploration of collective action and the significance of cooperation in the evolution of human civilization was a good entry point for the project. The future of mobile collaboration seems to be less about “How do we recreate our weekly PowerPoint brainstorm session online?” and more about “How can we connect in richer, mutually beneficial ways?” Thanks for showing that so well!
Hi Lindsay,
Thank-you for the feedback. We have fixed the settings for the Jamboard link and it should be accessible to everyone without requesting access.
Your point about not recreating our classroom experience, but instead looking for ways to connect more effectively using technology is a really important one. Great classroom teachers will adapt to new situations, but it takes some out-of-the-box thinking. Mobile collaboration between professionals seems to be one way to facilitate this transition, don’t you think?
I completely agree! Even in a traditional classroom setting teachers can often feel isolated professionally. Mobile collaboration could help to bridge the gap within a brick and mortar school and well as with distance or blended learning. Mobile Collaboration will certainly change how many people do their jobs, as your OER shows so well!