Project Reflection

I enjoyed working on the project with my partner developing a sample online physics course. There is a broad range of rich multimedia content for our topic that included animations, videos, documents and simulations. We started using a wiki to brainstorm about the project. After a few days of independent brainstorming, we collaborated synchronously using Skype. Wikis can only be edited by one person at a time. This did not pose a problem for us, since there was only two of us. If there were more members of the team, then we could have looked at Google Docs, Etherpad, or some other multi-user word processor.

During our first Skype call, we edited the wiki to convert the brainstorming into a "to do" list and we discussed who was responsible for each item. As we worked on the project, we added and subtracted from the "to do" list. Sometimes, we would add an item without who would be responsible. It was a friendly way to ask the other person to do a task without being bossy. We continued the cycle of independent work culminating with a synchronous call. I liked the independent work because I looked forward to seeing what my partner added on a daily basis. We would also leave comments and questions directly in the lesson wiki. In the end, we had four Skype calls with a total time of 9.75 hours. I'm not sure that I would have been anymore productive in a f2f setting.