Group+Work+Report

Group Work Report (This space is for writing and agreeing on the weekly Group Work Report before it is posted to the Discussions page in our course)

__Week ending Monday 9/5/11__ The group discussed subjects for our research proposal. Dawn, Shannon, and Maggie narrowed the topic to the area of virtual, digital, on-line...instruction.

Dawn kept us focused on the schedule, Maggie set up the wiki, and Shannon did some tweaking of the wiki.

__Week ending Monday 9/12/11__ The group discussed idea that the topic could be narrowed to. One idea suggested was the benefits of digital productions. It was also suggested that we should look at the current research in digital education to see what has been do to get a feel what we could focus our research on.

__Week ending Monday 9/19/11__ Shannon suggested some topic-related questions to encourage discussion and to help the group narrow our research topic and our reasearch in general. She also volunteered to take each individual's input on their weekly contributions to the group project, generate the weekly report, and post it to the Group 9 Discussion Board. Dorcas also volunteered to post our weekly discussion on the board.

The group tried to organize a face-to-face meeting but was not able to make it happen due to individual locations, schedules, and personal issues.

The group discussed the process we will use to complete our assignments as a group. The following was suggested by Maggie, Dorcas and Dawn: 1) as a group we can split up the Library Research Module, pick a number, and one of us can fill out the form and return it to the Librarian when complete; therefore each of us gets experience using the Library resources. 2) for the Research paper critique, assignment B, we thought that each of us could examine and critique it, then combine our findings into one evaluation for submission. We need to decide on dates for the completion so we all have a chance to review and combine.

Their suggestion was accepted by the group and summarized by Dawn as follows:

Part A is the numbered tasks for the Library Research Module. Each of us will get a task to complete. One of us can combine and submit to the Librarian. Part B is the Research paper critique. We all will do our own, then combine the results.

Our entire group may meet later to talk about the big picture, but for now we have a plan in place.

Maggie submitted a document with answers for the Library Research, problems 2, 3a and 4a, to the wiki. Dorcas has chosen to work on #4 and Shannon has chosen #5.

Dorcas posted a group topic entitiled "Group Topic: Online Distance Learning" discussing how to narrow down our topic and make it more focused for our research.

__Week ending Monday 9/26/11__ Part A for PS1: Dawn added information to answer question #1, and finished #3. Shannon added the answer to #5 and some edits to other answers. Dorcas and Maggie also contributed to correcting and refining answers and citations for PS1 Part A.

__Week ending Monday 10/3/11__ Group members made final contributions to PS1 Part A. Part B is still in the making. Discussion of an Oct. 9 group meeting was initiated by Dawn and all have agreed to meet. Discussion of work for our Literature Review and Sampling Plan was inititated by Shannon. We will discuss and formulate plans on Oct 9.

__Week ending Monday 10/10/11__ The group met (despite fallen trees and flooded roads) at UCF to finalize PS1 Parts A and B. All members did final reviews and editing for the final submission of both parts. Maggie kept us straight regarding APA formatting; thanks to Dorcas for some last-minute research; Dawn put it all together for Part A; and Shannon put it all together for Part B. We then submitted, as a group, through Shannon's login.

Maggie cleaned up the home page of our wiki. Shannon acted as Recording Secretary as we all conducted research and made various suggestions and contributions to the group work while making major progress on our Research Proposal.

All group members contributed to narrowing our research subject to Teaching Mathematics to Third-Grade ELL Students Using Technology Versus Using Traditional Methods. The literature review, literature gap, research purpose, and significance, are almost complete. We identified our research questions and selected the population and sample as well as the instrument to be used. All decisions are recorded in our wiki.

Each member will continue their reading of the modules and the textbook and making suggestions for other parts of the paper until our next F2F Meeting Nov 4. Each member will continue writing and tweaking the lit review and other parts of the research proposal; we expect about 3/4 of our paper to be written when we meet again.

__Week ending Monday 10/17/11__ Shannon made additional suggestions about controlling extraneous variables and possible threats. Each member of the group continued to work on their inidividual parts of the proposal. Dorcas informed us that we can take the midterm as many times as we want within the time that it is open. Each group member has been preparing for the midterm this week as well.

__Week ending Monday 10/24/11__ Midterm week; no report due.

__Week ending Monday 10/31/11__ Each member of the group completed their Midterm Exam and continued to work on the Final Proposal. Our group is still planning a face-to-face meeting for the coming weekend. All of us are beginning to work on Problem Set 2; we will share our progress this weekend and finalize our submission.

__Week ending Monday 11/07/11__ Everyone met on Sunday to work on Problem Set 2 at the UCF library.

Part A of the problem set was completed through participation of all group members. This was accomplished via previous individual work on the problem set as well as research and discussion during today's meeting.

Part B was broken up so that everyone worked on a section of the critique and then input was pulled together by Shannon. Finalization of Part B will be done over the next week or so with final review by all group members. Submission will be made no later than November 28.

The group continues to work on our Final Research Proposal individually.

Our next face-to-face meeting is set for November 27.

__Week ending Monday 11/14/11__ The group continued to review and tweak Part B of PS2. Shannon made several edits to the group effort for Part B on the wiki.

The group also continued to work individually on the Final Research Proposal.

__Week ending Monday 11/21/11__ The group continued to work individually on the Research Proposal and to prepare for our face-to-face meeting this coming Sunday. Shannon posted paragraphs for the Background and Purpose on the wiki for group members to read, comment on, and add to and also made a couple of edits to PS2 Part B.

__Week ending Monday 11/28/11__ Shannon made more posts to the wiki for additional sections of our Research Proposal and Maggie gave some input as well.

The group met face to face on Sunday, November 27, to make final edits for PS2 and to submit it via webcourse. A couple of final edits were made, all group members reviewed and agreed upon our submission for PS2, and Maggie submitted it for the group.

The group also worked on the research proposal and discussed what else needs to be completed by next weekend. The group discussed the "read and discuss" assignment from Module 14 and each member will be working on that over the following week as well.

The group scheduled another day and time to meet to do the final review of the proposal.

Shannon made additional posts to the wiki for any missing sections of our Research Proposal. All group members will complete their work on all sections this week and be prepared to pull it all together next Sunday.

__Week ending Monday 12/5/11__ Dawn, Maggie, Dorcas, and Shannon made contributions to the wiki all week long. Shannon took the information that had been posted to the wiki and put it into a word document, created Appendix A, and posted both to the wiki for review and edits.

The group met face to face on Sunday, December 4. Everyone was responsible for reading and coming prepared to share input on what they thought should be added to or deleted from the paper.

The group went over the final proposal paragraph by paragraph to determine what should be changed. Everyone helped with the formating of the document and with the citations. Dawn and Shannon created Appendix B and Maggie incorporated the Appendices into the Research Proposal Word file. Dorcas began the summary for our Research Proposal Summary.

The Research Proposal Summary was finalized by all and posted in Webcourses by Maggie.

Shannon reviewed and made final edits to the Research Proposal and submitted it to the group for final review and approval on Monday.

After receiving final approval, Shannon will submit the Research Proposal asap.

All group members will post Activity 14 reflections this week and comment on each others' posts.