Monday, December 16, 2013

Final FCP Reflections & Comments

Thank you for all of your efforts during the Flat Classroom Project.  Please make a final reflection as a comment to this post.  Be sure to include at least one positive comment and at least one suggestion for improvement.

26 comments:

  1. I found the Flat Classroom Project to be a great learning experience. During the project, I enjoyed the interconnectedness between students from the multiple schools and meeting the different personalities. However, although we had multiple places to communicate, most people never seemed to use them, which was frustrating especially for me being a student leader and having to reach other group members. All in all, I had an okay experience with the Flat Classroom Project.

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  2. Throughout the project, I experienced positives and negative aspects. I liked that I could receive different perspectives on my work. However, I did not like that I couldn't easily get answers to my questions.

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  3. For the most part my experience with the Flat Classroom Project was enjoyable. I had the topic of “Google takes over the world” part D, and the other students in my group seemed to be very on task and cooperative, that made it very easy for us to finish our portion of the project. Some of the technology was frustrating at first but once I got the hang of it, the project went really well. I would suggest to make the deadlines more strict in order to keep all of the students on the same page.

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  4. I enjoyed the project and the concept of fun collaborating with others from different schools. It was a little difficult at first because it was a new way of researching and learning and it was challenging getting in contact with the other students. After a while, though, I got into the swing of things and the project went more smoothly. The time differences were sometimes hard because we some times wouldn't hear back from others for a few days. I did like, though, that the final videos were done individually. Overall I thought working together with others was an interesting way of learning and it was fascinating knowing that we were working with people from other states or even countries. I'm glad that I got to take part in the flat classroom project.

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  5. I found that Flat Classroom project was a good experience. Through the project I thought it was very good, but I thought that the wiki was a very hard feature of the project. I would suggest that maybe we should drop the wiki part or edit so that it is much better. But overall it is a very good project.

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  6. I thought the project was a very good experience to collaborate and communicate with other people. I think the concept of the project was good, however, since we could not talk with the other people in our groups it was difficult to share our thoughts.

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  7. I really enjoyed the Flat Classroom project. I thought that it was a good break from the typical learning style in most classes to do something unrelated that we haven't done before. I think that the Wiki portion of the project should be edited or deleted because the website is confusing and difficult to navigate and working with other students in that manner was hard. However, I enjoyed the overall interconnectedness of the project.

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  8. Throughout the duration of this project, I have experienced many positive experiences and several minor difficulties. One of the best things about this project was researching current event issues and discovering advancements of the world that I was previously unaware of. I also really enjoyed working with another student from another school, as this allowed for both of us to benefit from our different perspectives. Finally, making the video was enjoyable, as it allowed me to be creative and teach people something that they may not have been fully aware of before. However, there were several complications faced as well. One problem was that many of the people in my group (five, to be exact) had almost nothing to contribute to the first part of the project. Also, some parts of the project were frustrating, as they felt too open-ended for me to feel confident in developing a solution. Finally, I felt like the wiki was very pointless, as it had nothing to do with our final videos. Overall though, I feel like this was a wonderful project, and I was happy to take part in it.

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  9. Overall, the Flat Classroom was a learning experience encompassing both positive and negative aspects. For example, it was hard to work with people on the wiki because many classes did not check or contribute on the wiki often. One of the best parts of the project was the outsourcing clips because it was a chance to work with another student for the individual counted video.

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  10. Overall, I think that the Flat Classroom project was a valuable experience. I agree with the point that came up several times during class that there should definitely be more strict deadlines, as well as a different format for research. On the other hand, I did appreciate how closely the project related to The World is Flat because it was nice to continue work on our prerequisite throughout the semester.

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  11. I thought that the Flat Classroom Project was an okay time, I mean if everyone is contributing quality information. I enjoyed making the outsource clips because it was a fun way to get in another person's video. I think that the project should mandate going on to the websites at least x times a week, but on different days.

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  12. I thought that the Flat Classroom Project was a worthwhile endeavor. I enjoyed the interconnectedness and different platforms and it was interesting to meet new people. Furthermore, it was interesting to gain different perspectives and work with people not only from the U.S., but from Canada and Australia as well. However, despite these triumphs, there were some areas that lacked. For one, many other schools did not collaborate effectively or finished their work late. Communication on the Ning was although flimsy and primitive; e-mail would work better. As a whole, FCP was a truly eye-opening experience.

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  13. I enjoyed the video aspect of the project and found the topic of my video interesting. However, I felt the comment and notes section was unproductive. I felt the work was unevenly distributed and communication was weak. I feel if everyone had a collaborative notes section but wrote their own comment this project would be much more productive.

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  14. The Flat Classroom Project was a great experience. The collaboration was very helpful in researching our topics and we were introduced to new people, ideas, and websites. I would recommend having more strict deadlines so everybody actually contributes. Hopefully we get to do something like this again in the future.

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  15. I enjoyed the Flat Classroom Project because it taught me how to communicate and work with new and different people, while using new types of technology. I felt that the Ning was very useful because it helped everyone to get to know the other students that they were collaborating with. Sometimes it was a little frustrating because people did not contribute equally to the wiki, and other students needed to work even harder to make up for this. This could have been because the students were confused about what they were supposed to be doing on the project, so it might be helpful to have an introductory presentation to show students how to easily navigate through the project.

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  16. The Flat Classroom Project was a great way to learn the positive and negative sides of online collaboration. There were a few people in my group that really contributed to the Wiki but there were also others that sat by and watched us work. I think that the Wiki did not really translate to our final projects because much of the research on the Wiki came from small articles. I think that this project would improve greatly if it were in more of a blog-type format and if there were universal deadlines. I thought that that Ning was a great way to find out more about the people we are working with and that the final video was actually a lot of fun to make. The only problem that I had with my final video was finding a person to create my outsourcing clip. I think that if we were assigned partners with another person that we worked with we could make each others outsourcing clips and that would be less stressful. Overall the Flat Classroom Project was a fun and interesting way to combine working with others and the use of technology.

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  17. I enjoyed the Flat Classroom Project because it allowed me to work with other people from different schools and to gain a different perspective on a topic. I believe that the ning was a good idea because it allowed me to get to know the people that were in the group. However, it was difficult to work with students that did not have a ning but only a wiki. Additionally, I thought that making the video was fun but that the wiki did not provide a very good basis for my video. I actually did additional research after I started my video. Lastly, I originally thought that we were going to be making a video with other people. If there was a software that allowed us to work on a video with others, I believe that this would allow us to work with others even more. In sum, I enjoyed the project because I could work with others, but I felt that the wiki did not help very much.

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  18. After discussing FCP, it is clear that the project has flaws; specifically, the collaboration with other students. It seemed that most schools did not have the students complete and submit the assignments on the planned schedule. Furthermore, the number of student leaders should be limited to at most three. Also, the wiki was a problem that contributed to communication. In summary, the project should incorporate more collaboration between students and more strict deadlines.

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  19. I really liked the Flat Classroom Project. It was a great way to connect students, and learning new skills. The group of students which worked on the different parts of the project was not as many as who was signed up to work on the project. Communication between the students should of occurred more and it would be better to get a hold of another student by only have one site to communicate on. Overall, I think this project was a great learning experience.

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  20. Overall, this was a very unique experience that I do not think I would have gotten otherwise. I think that this showed everyone that it is important to contribute. I also learned that patience when working with groups was imporant. I had this realization when it became apparent that not everyone has access to their computers everyday, so you are going to have to wait but they will come with time. The FCP also helps give some of us an insight of what our future careers may be like. Working in the business world may bring similar circumstances because you will be working with people from all around the world. All in all, flat classroom project was a great idea with a few flaws, but if we were patient we could learn a lot.

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  21. I had an okay experience with the Flat Classroom Project, and I feel that it was a great concept executed in a way that prevented it from reaching its full potential. The wiki collaboration was difficult, with other group members not contributing until towards the end of the project. One suggestion I would have with regards to improving FCP would be to remove the wiki, and also to alternate topics every semester.

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  22. I found the flat classroom project and learning about how other students work and collaborate to be interesting. At first, the project was a bit overwhelming to work on considering that I walked into the project blind and had no idea as to what the goal of the project was or what i was supposed to be contributing. As time went on, i eventually got the hang of it and figured it all out. There were some problems in the project like the time differences and when asking a question, sometimes there wouldn't be a response back until a couple days later. Technology was also a problem for me individually because when it comes to computers, i have no idea as to what i'm doing. Overall, this project was very interesting to work on and i had a great time getting to know new people and working with them. We gave each other positive feedback and constructive criticism to make the research as best as we could.

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  23. Going into the project I was very excited for the opportunity to work with people from different parts of the country, and even other parts of the world. However, in practice the project was a bit of a hassel. The wiki was very difficult to navigate and not everyone contributed to the project until our deadline was up. One thing I enjoyed was the Ning, which gave us the chance to communicate and establish relationships with the other students on the project.

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  24. I believe that the flat classroom project made a amateur attempt at online communication and collaboration. The structure of the project was obscure and not defined very well. However, a couple adjustments could fix these problems. I believe smaller groups, almost like focus groups would make a better product on the wiki. They could possibly work together to form a group thesis about a current event. Then, the video could be each individuals take on the event and the group could assist in refining the individuals video by making suggest and using peer review tactics. During the project, I also had difficulty with the technology side and I would have liked possibly a tech advisor to answer specific question just because the project is so heavily based on technology, uploading and communicating. My final suggestion would be to explain the project in a more upfront, self explanatory way. Possibly a video that directly explains the product the students need to produce. they could watch this before they started the project. I hope future students that participate in this project have an easier time flattening the classroom then I did.

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  25. I felt that the Flat Classroom Project was an overall good experience. At first I was hesitant because I did not know what the project entailed. However, as the project progressed it started to become more interesting. I liked how we were able to connect and collaborate with students all over the world. I also liked how each group was working on a small part of a larger project. One flaw I found with the project was that I felt we did all this research and it had nothing to do with our final video. One change that could be made to enhance the project is that we should make our final videos about the same topic we researched. All in all I thought that the project was very enjoyable and I hope to work on something similar in the future.

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  26. The Flat Classroom Project was a new and interesting experience that I am glad I had. A positive side to the project was working with new people who we had never known before. It also exposed me to different ways to collaborate because these people are not right in front of me. However, the project did have some downsides. The format of the Wiki was a bit confusing since it took so many clicks of a link to get where you wanted to go on the site. I recommend less links and an easier to navigate format.

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