12-5-11


 * || From |||||| **Cynthia Sarver** || ||  ||   ||

Hi again.

I say "again" because each of you has received an email from me in the past 24 hrs about one thing or another.

It is important that in order for us to move forward with our Webquest in class on Monday, we bring to class fully completed what we agreed to last week:

1. **One complete draft of our individual webquest**. If you don't yet have a website or a wiki and you just want to gather all the images and research in a doc that will then just be paste-able into a website/wiki/or (in my case) video, that's fine. But 90% of the work needs to be finished (and done well), as we agreed. The template for the "individual webquests" is on Google docs. Once you look at it, you will understand what I mean when I say that I expect you to have "mapped" the entire webquest and provided all the info and graphics for each component part/page by the time we meet on Monday. The group cannot proceed without you. (I sent an email about this earlier this week, but it bears repeating, I think). []

2. We will have **finished developing the "foundation" of the webquest by transposing the belief statements from "the CITE article" into essential questions** that will be engaging to our intended audience (the work we began in class, linked here: [] Again, sorry for the repetition, but...

If all of this is finished by class time on Monday, as planned, we can devote minimal time to reviewing or "workshopping" our webquests, and spend our time discussing "the backend" (or the final details about publicity; setting up the Mindomo site; the wiki; directions for future users; etc. -- all of the collaborative work we will do before our final class meeting on the 12th in order to be fully finished with the project), using whatever time is left for work on finalizing details of your various unsubmitted assignments.

At least that WAS my plan for class this coming Monday. //But a classmate of yours has written to ask whether we might have a "work day" in class//, which I am fine with, IF, in addition to the above, we can agree to have fully finished discussing those "backend" issues online.

We have not been very successful collaborating virtually this semester, so I am going to leave Monday's agenda up to you: if you all engage well in an online discussion and figure out the backend issues -- what they are and fully develop an organized plan of 1) what to do and 2) how to equitably delegate work -- I am more than happy to just devote the first few minutes of class to the review of your Individual Webquest drafts and leave the bulk of the period for you to finalize the details of your various projects.

In order to make sure we've got all of our bases covered, I would highly recommend cross-check the reading on project planning (and PBL) that we did for last week AND look at my summary of what I thought were relevant to us: []

As you know, there's one google doc devoted to the backend already, on which I've begun doing some brainstorming for us: ( [|https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FEOOMnh0vnsUTIkDPNkuiHQh73nN-Z2suxZFJSxyLDk/edit?hl=en_U] . You may find that you want to integrate some ideas brought up during the initial planning stages on the doc created by Elizabeth ( [] ).

As for how to communicate with each other, I have a few ideas: 1) use the comment feature on Google docs as necessary; 2) use BB's discussion board or our Edmodo space [] Code: sbw2uu Provide links within the Google doc to conversation threads (if possible).

3) You'll also see on our BlackBoard site that we have access to Elluminate and we could have a synchronous web-conference if we could find some common time (Sunday evening, I'm thinking).

If the conversation gets rolling along, I'll chime in. But as I've said repeatedly, this is //your// project -- and a collaborative one. As you can see, I've already done a lot to lay the foundation for you.

So if the planning is finished by class on Monday and it is clear that everyone has had a chance to participate, we can most definitely move forward with the plan for a "work day." Otherwise, as you see from the above, we've got our work cut out for us!

**Regardless, you MUST have the WebQuest work that we agreed to (above) finished by class-time on Monday**. I've been and will continue to be flexible about when you turn your individual assignments in. But with collaborative projects, it is UNACCEPTABLE to not carry your weight. And don't forget that a portion of your overall course grade is based in your "collaborativeness."

Email me if you have questions. For better of worse, I'm chained to my desk all weekend. : -- (

Cynthia