Belly flops with new media

The largest digital writing assignment I've ever created was the biggest flop. So let me share with you what I did, what happened and what I'd do differently.

**Group Instructions Project**
I was teaching a couple of sections of Professional and Technical Writing. A course requirement was a group project and instructions lend themselves naturally to a group assignment because of the complexity of creating an object, writing instructions, using illustrations, testing the final instructions on potential users, etc. The problem was I had five students that for legitimate reasons missed class frequently. I thought I had a perfect set of circumstances to try a distance-learning group project that used digital writing. I asked each potential member if they would be willing to do an online group and all agreed to participate.

''The assignment''
The assignment, in my mind at least, was straight-forward. They were to create a wiki using the U of M's wiki system that would explain to someone that hadn't used wikis before 1) what a wiki is 2) how to create a wiki 3) how to edit a wiki and 4) important issues that new users should consider before contributing or using a wiki. Group members didn't have to come to class (since their group had members in my morning and afternoon class) but they were expected to post each class period on the discussion board I created to divide up work and report back to the group to their progress. My assignment sheet was as clear as I could make it and about triple the length of my assignment sheet for the "traditional" assignment.

''What happened''
Absolutely nothing. The students obviously didn't really read the assignment sheet. Even when I sent emails to the group members reminding them to introduce themselves on the discussion board only one or two of them did so. More than a week into a two week project a few of them came to see me not understanding what a wiki was or why it was important for them to know.

Finally a two of the guys stepped up and took some leadership (grades are great motivators). They got the project divided up and one created the wiki and emailed his group with the link. But the group never became a group - they all did their segments of the project but didn't touch others sections even when their were obvious errors. They all claimed work as individuals and none of them did the posts that I required three times a week.

''What I would change''
If I were doing this assignment again I would require an initial face-to-face meeting with me to discuss the project, the objective and the requirements with the group. I would make individual points for participating in a timely manner as well as group points for having their work done so usability testing could occur. Not having them meet face to face was my largest mistake as a teacher, but I thought the introductions post and the post I asked them to do about their interests and strengths/weaknesses would start the conversation sufficiently. I failed to realize that EVERYTHING has to be for points in an online environment otherwise students see it as optional. Even when it is as important as communicating with their group, many students don't see communication as logically necessary.


If you want to see their final project it's at https://wiki.umn.edu/view/Main/Towar003.