Dynamics of the collaboration process.

As I recall it was quite difficult to arrange meeting times through the MUVEnation forum so that the whole group could attend but we did manage a core and adopted another member who could not contact her team.
The discussion process was fairly easily facilitated through everyone checking understanding and agreement very amicably.

Interestingly despite being seated in RL whenever I am at the computer, I do feel more relaxed when my avatar is seated and the log fire at the Muvenation site seemed to promote a harmonious and relaxing atmosphere in which to plan our group activity.

The initial phase was deciding what to research. We then returned at a later date with the infomration on the sites we had researched. Tere has posted these local chat conversations, to which we all agreed.

Because we used local chat it was easy to go back and check what everyone had said. As the avatar cannot give visual clues easily (like nodding and smiling in RL) it is important to show you are listening and assenting within the text, to demonstrate agreement.

The process of collating and agreeing did not pose any significant problems, although we did anticipate that it might with all our different interests.

We all agreed to search within our chosen selection of words and the second meeting we agreed which sites we would individually use for our travel guide. Searching had to go beyond our agreed words because of limited results. Despite a couple of us having picked the same sites this was divided amicably.

I was happy to choose from a variety I had investigated and in fact continued to look at more sites and eventually chose a more interactive themed site.

Initially it was motivating to have the group presence to get started but I did find the constant switching from Blogs to Flickr to Moodle tedious and demotivating. I had also made handwritten notes because of the hours spent looking at the screen. I spent at least 6 hours looking at sites and taking screen shots, only a few I actually used.

The six hours did not include the time spent at meetings, and I spent almost three additional hours yesterday collating in the various wikis, blogs etc. It was also motivating to visit the wiki and see the others’ work already there to which I added my own travel guide notes.
I felt positive about my team who had worked to compile the wiki and especially to Bascule and Tere who had posted the logs and ensured my contributions had been commented on when I did not have the time to do so myself. It is fairly typical of me that I do a lot of work that never gets seen because I never know when to stop. Bascule kept me on task, but living in the same house, he also give me additional support when I was flagging in RL.

I was not aware of any misunderstandings or problems but I was too busy with RL employment to check back with other members of the group after the initial meetings to know if they were happy with my contributions. As I started late on the course, I have not made many comments on anything, neither have I engaged in online conversations as much as I should, and I will address this in the next phase having got to grips with other elements.

As a drama practitioner I do enjoy working with others, although as a teacher and director one might assume I like taking responsibility... but actually I do enjoy others taking the lead and only like responsibility when I am totally confident.