Group 4 Question 7

Initially our group had a hard time communicating. Some group members were sending e-mails, others were posting comments on our class blog and others were using D2L. Some group members were using all three. Once we established a central forum to share our ideas, engagement increased and our project seemed to make more sense. There was difficulty throughout this process, but many advantages as well.

Our group chose not to meet in person at any point during our research in order to take full advantage of the internet project. The experience was new and intimidating for most of us, as we had never completed an entire group project online.
Flexibility was seen as an advantage and disadvantage. Overall, we liked the flexibility of working together online, but the flexibility also made it difficult to monitor or gage progress which caused anxiety and frustration for some group members.

We did not have established deadlines or specific times to discuss our ideas which made it difficult to hold group members accountable.

Topic choice:
The topic choice was rather easy for most of us. Health care reform is a timely controversial topic that has received a lot of media coverage over the last few months.

Internet conventions:
We tried to organize our information in a way that was appealing to the eye: bold font, bullet points, italics, breaking up text with pictures etc. We used videos, article links and images as well.

What we would change? Overall, we would not change anything about the project itself. We learned a lot about health care and even more about the internet.

We would however, change the way in which we went about completing the project. We would establish deadlines early on to help hold group members accountable. The deadlines would also keep the group organized and as a result, alleviate any confusion, anxiety or frustration.