roberth

Upon reflection, the meeting of the 19^th May was thorough and complete. The name for the group was finalised, The Coach’s Assistant. The work allocation shortfalls became known and the establishing of communication times between us was sorted. There was shared responsibility and expectation struck between us in completing the Group Charter and how the work was to be edited. From my perspective in having to find a group to work with; the initial e-mail to the EMT2 students was probably reflective of many others having to work in group:- students hate it because their time is no longer entirely their own; it is a shared resource. From my own perspective I recognise it is how the world operates. A team approach to problem solving is the expected norm in business practice.  The incompatibility arising in learning by coursework such as this subject’s content is that it is an additional requirement and not integrated within the subject’s program unlike day-to-day business activities. That said, in having dealt with this issue throughout my life the success within the group functioning is using the group meeting time as a confirmation stage, short in duration and highly focused with the end point being a reallocation of unfinished tasks  and individuals going away to prepare that work for the next meeting iteration. This is how the meeting on the 19^th May concluded and to gain synchronous learning/work continuities the e-mail and telephone communication method was used to align the group.

On the 24^th May, (the scheduled block meeting period for the subject), the group met at 0800h to finalise the detail for presentation for Assignment 2, part1. At class presentation, whilst the group did not have the depth in detail of the other larger groups who presented, there was good understanding of the entire spectrum of the subject matter by all and more importantly the approach that was being presented was using the technology platforms to access information sources between people that had not previously been able to be tapped. Clearly the need was firmly positioned and the work we were presenting was the underpinning structure to allow the need to develop.

After considerable months of complaint over the TAFE computer I was using it was finally replaced this week. The continuity that was lost for me through equipment inaccessibility, the ‘big-brother’ approach has made me realise that equipment compatibility is paramount for e-learning to be truly viable. At all times a trainee needs to be able to step-out of synchronous learning to be able to find answers at least semi-synchronously to enable them to maintain their focus in their learning.