Check out the new Knight-Batten awards

(This is a repost with some tweaks of what I just put on the Rockchucks blog)

I'm going to come back with some deeper observations on my own blog later, but I want to post this quickly so you can peruse it and see how it validates our ideas, or how it may suggest that our ideas need a bit of a polish or a nudge.

The Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism were just announced, and you will find a couple of familiar faces (and some not) among the winners. Here's the link.

I think these projects might should influence/inform our projects as we move forward. Team Kansas, I particularly think the TechPresident project (grand prize winner) has implications ... Is there something here you can reflect/learn from/build on in what we're doing?

Team Kansas: Progress Report

The KU/K-State team had an hour-long phone conference on Monday night (Sept. 3) and here are the highlights of what we discussed. We decided to continue exploring ways we could further develop and add depth to Better Letter and still retain its simplicity. Towards that goal, team members divided themselves into groups to explore the following (1) ways we could integrate video into the design of the product to allow users alternative ways of communicating. One possible solution could be to simply insert a link that would connect users to video-hosting sites that already exist (2) the possibility of incorporating Google maps to help public figures identify the geographic areas generating particular issues
(3) Research and identify open source voice recognition software that can easily be integrated into the site to allow citizens with disabilities to be part of the conversation.
(4) Incorporate a comments and Talk About feature into the design.
(5) The team is in need of a computer coder who can help design a prototype that would incorporate the above features.
(6) We further decided to explore the possibility of Beta testing the product on the sites of K/State and KU student media.
(7) The team will adopt the name Team Kansas.
(8) Each member will continue to research other innovative ways of improving our product.
(9) We will move the conversation to our blog and continue to be actively involved in blogging.

Rockchucks stepping up

At our weekly conference last night, the Rockchucks team seemed to be leaning toward a broad idea that one team member dubbed "collabor-portal." Three or so members of the team are working toward nailing the idea description by noon Tuesday.

As they worked toward deciding on one idea last week, the blog discussion was all over the place, with some people floating some pretty theoretical concepts and others sprinkling in totally new bits of ideas. The discussion was quite lively and engaged, with a lot of back and forth in the comments areas. No one in this group seems shy, and at the same time, no one person appears to be dominating the discussion.

I'm waiting to see the articulation of the idea before giving it a tough critique. Up until now the ideas have been in sort of "soft focus" which makes them harder to evaluate from a practical standpoint. It's my hope that they would rather hear the tough critique from faculty now, than fall flat in Toronto.

As the week progresses, the team members will be critiquing the idea and they will also self-select into sub-groups for technology, presentation and research.

A question for the research folks among us: Is there any good way (besides transcribing notes) of recording the conference calls? Would that be useful to you research people?

Expiring minds wish to know ... ;-)

Group Webinar results

Hi folks,

Team 3, now known as team devastator, had our phone chat last night. We have 2 ideas we really like. The group is dividing up to work on one or the other in more detail, start to mock up what it owuld look like, how people would use it. They have nice connections for local news organizations, are going after good target audiences, and have built ways for the users to be both consumers and producers of news which i like a lot. And they seem different from other things out there. A version of the 2 ideas are on the team blog - this week hopefully they will get even more fleshed out and pictures should start to appear.

We also have at least one person we're going to cut for non-performance. I'm ready to send at least one of the people a message today - anybody think of a reason to wait? They have missed a couple of chats, haven't posted, didn't work with the groups developing the ideas the last couple of weeks and didn't come thru with the research on the idea they had picked to work on. So not just one kind of non-performance, but several. Again - anybody have a reason I should wait/not cut them? Let me know

url for team 2

http://rockchucks.wordpress.com

Here's the group formerly known as team 3 - now known as team devastator

http://teamdevastator.blogspot.com/

Post blogs

Team leaders, or knowledgeable others, please post all three team blogs.

thanks,

Darcy

Here's the info from brandy

Brandy will (already did) book all of the hotel rooms in Toronto.
Pay for and register all the people going to ONA.
Set it up so that any school that can't afford travel can call out travel agent and I will pay that bill.

I need!!

- To know everyone who is going - we are traveling there on Wednesday, 10/17, presenting on the evening of the 18th, and departing on the 19th.
I will need name, address, phone, grad or undergrad, if they are a member and the ID if so,
If someone wants to stay on Friday night, the grant can't pay for this, so I'll need a credit card to book the room for another night. (ASAP - the hotel is filling fast)

I also need to know if anyone is willing to double up. (would faculty share any rooms to save some $?)
I really need to know if there are any students that would have 4 in a room, 2 per double bed. I would need to get a list together of who is rooming together soon!

Team Rockchucks

The team formerly known as Team Two is the Rockchucks (long story, and I suspect sleep deprivation was a factor in the misidentification of an actual critter Saturday morning in front of the IC dorms).
Here is the link to their blog.
We will be teleconferencing/meeting Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, 6 p.m. Vegas time, 8 p.m. San Antonio time, and I have no idea what's wrong with Kansas time ;-)
Should any "floating" faculty care to join Darcy and me on the call, pipe up --
Thanks!

Floaters vs consultants

In preparing for Fall semester and Phase II of the Innovation Incubator, I feel that going with the role of consultant may be better than the role of floater for the non assigned faculty.

Keeping up on three team blogs, being prepared for three different discussions and thinking about the details of all the projects may be too much work when combined with other duties. May we consider assigning the "floaters" to the teams they worked with in Ithaca. As a result, each team would have two full time faculty members. Any faculty member could be "invited" by another team to consult with them on specific issues concerning their project.

What are your thoughts?
If we keep the floater, can the role be simplified?

blog url for what was team 3

now known as team devastator
http://teamdevastator.blogspot.com/

this week they're looking into a couple of different audiences
still kicking around the video idea but looking for a focus, for what audiences need/want

till school starts anyway - we're going to talk on sunday evening at 8:30 eastern time


Kim

Jeff Jarvis has post about another incubator project in Journalism

in his BuzzMachine blog

The project was over at the Economist magazine. Sounds like they were doing things similar to our project - be open, talk to lots of people, come up with something on the web that was innovative.

he has some good critiques of their process - the biggest complaint was that they didn't come up with a business idea as a philanthropic/social service kind of idea that won't help the magazine's business much in the near or long term.

And he describes (briefly - would love to hear more) a new class he's teaching - on entrepreneurial journalism. The students will have to do this kind of innovation process too.

Kim

NY Times story on mapping..

..please share with teams working with mapping features:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/technology/27maps.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1185674824-rIy86jXTlN/ic+UuZPFgHQ

nifty tools for our work

Here's an interesting article from ZDNet about some mashup tools that might be just what some of us are looking for to help online collaboration in this process. My husband stumbled across this on one of his listserves and passed it along, thinking we might find this useful. I am posting it here at Kim's suggestion ...
Here's a little snippet from the piece by Dion Hinchcliffe:

A bumper crop of new mashup platforms

... I’ve been been tracking many of these new or evolving mashup platforms and thought I’d compile my take of the leading players in the mashup space today, particularly given the number of new or significantly upgraded products in the last few months. To make the cut, all the products listed below had to allow live integration of functionality or content (data) over a network, provide an easy-to-use development model that is theoretically accessible by end-users, be available in at least beta form, and either consume and/or produce Web-based applications and services. Using this refined selection model, you’ll see this list looks a bit different from last year’s round-up of mashup platforms. Yet despite the removal of a few products, the list is bigger than ever with 17 products currently available that offer credible mashup assembly capabilities today...

A list of collaborative tools

from the folks at Mashable (a social networking blog)
http://mashable.com/2007/07/22/online-collaboration/
Might be some tools the groups can use now - or after the August meeting when we're down to 3 groups;projects

they have a list today of mapping tools. earlier this summer there were lists of wordpress add ons, blogger tools, tools for online photo and video editing, and wiki tools.

Worth a look...Kim

Faculty Webinar check-in on Tuesday

Looks like Tuesday, July 24 at noon (eastern) works for the majority. I will contact Brandy to set up a Webinar call, and you will hear from her directly as to the phone number/access code.

Talk to you then!

Faculty conference call (pre-Ithaca) requested

Following today's Webinar conversation with Dianne and several faculty members, it seems important that we (the faculty mentors) have another Webinar call together before our return to Ithaca on August 2. (Dianne said she would be hugely grateful for our input on two items.)

1) Are there students who have not been participating adequately in the process and should be disinvited at this point in time? If so, does it make sense to ask them not to come to the August meeting? It was agreed that the project's performance measures were adequately and clearly explained in Dianne's e-mail letter to all students in June.

2) How much time at the beginning of the Ithaca meeting should be given to the students to tweak ideas/finalize presentations? Should they be asked to present upon arrival or have an evening or 24 hours to reconnect (particularly mixed teams) and practice? A good chunk of the Ithaca meeting will be spent synthesizing ideas to three and defining teams/roles for phase two of the project.

Dianne will send another communication to students within the next day or so re: her conversations with folks at the ONA and key news executives (interesting developments!)..as a kind of positive motivator/reminder about the importance/seriousness of this project, with the potential for their ideas to redefine online news for the industry. (That'll put the fear of God into 'em!)

How about a Webinar call next week, Tuesday, July 24 at 5 p.m. Eastern? Or Friday, July 27 at 12 noon Eastern? Other suggestions?

August Presentation Template?

greetings everyone:

would we like to consider devising a template for the final presentations in august? when i've been a judge for advertising campaign competitions in the past, the students have had a plug-and-play format including elements like objective, history, intended audience, sample implementations of print/radio/video/etc. (which would translate easily to our prototypes here).

a consistent outline across teams seems to force researched and reflective content while reducing fluff, consequently improving the clarity of the final best ideas.

just a thought that may be discussed here or during our conference call...

cheers.

Team Awesome plus one

An update: We have adopted Steve Patterson from team 2. He attended tonights Skype session and is interested in Team Awesome's idea.

Comments feed is active!

The comments feed is now active. If you note the top of the sidebar, you now have a choice of subscribing to the "posts" feed or the "comments" feed. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't allow you to integrate them into one feed and I don't want to mess around with feedburner, so...I suggest you all subscribe to both feeds. This will keep you up to speed on all things going on with this blog.

Thanks to Sam for graciously opening up the guts of the blog to me so I could get this up and running.

Team Voltron update

My group has had difficulty making a decision (on a single idea) via consensus. No contentiousness among members, just challenges in agreeing on a direction. So, we are in the process of voting on our blog (a weighted system, where their #1 choice gets 3 votes; #2 idea gets two votes; and #3 gets one vote). We should have our sole idea posted by tomorrow morning at the latest.

Another bit of news: Tyler Machado (St. Mike's), of Team 2, will be joining Team Voltron beginning today through our return to Ithaca (when teams will be reconfigured). Apparently Kim's Team 2 has lost four of the five students through lack of participation on their parts. Kim has asked us to "adopt" Tyler for now, so he can have some experience of creation netting with other folks. Tyler also showed an interest in some of the ideas Team Voltron was working on. I conferred with my team members and they are happy to have him on-board. Not sure what happens to Team 2's ideas? Any suggestions, Kim?

future research

in our june ithaca meeting, we talked about future research ideas surrounding this project, one of which was kim's proposal of conducting a thematic analysis on the chat transcripts.

after our conference call last week, it occurred to me that we may not have all the data we might need to succeed at something like this if some groups are using phone interfaces and others are meeting in person (and probably not recording/transcribing those conversations).

my interpretation may not be accurate on this, but i thought i'd mention it in case we wanted to make sure we had such data from here on out.

happy monday.

monday presentation

greetings.

i wasn't sure how detailed we wanted our team presentations to be tomorrow, so here's what i suggested to my students:

state project description
state project objective
outline project (key phrases/bullets fine at this phase)
state project benefits.

let me know if this is fine, too vague, or too comprehensive for what we'd like to see tomorrow.
thanks and happy monday.

feedback weekend

just an update that i've urged my team to offer feedback for other team ideas as immediately as possible. at this point, our feedback flow is weak. my students are still shuffling through ideas and seem to be hitting walls when it comes to conjuring a truly innovative idea that holds the potential to revamp journalism technologically while maintaining traditional ideals. may the epiphanies soon flow...
cheers.

Raising the red flag on feedback (or lack thereof)

So, I've scanned all seven team blogs and there are at most five comments for Sam's team's ideas (out of a possible 30-ish per blog). My Team Voltron's ideas have received only a single feedback response. My students were hesitant to narrow from three ideas to one tonight on our Skype check-in because of the lack of feedback. (The solitary response was actually quite helpful to them in furthering development of an idea.)

Charlotte-Anne, you asked me to "raise the red flag" on Thursday if there was limited feedback, and I am doing so tonight! Somehow, we need to light a fire under the masses to get them commenting on each other's ideas before Sunday.

Are the top ideas easily identifiable on the blogs? Some are, and some are not, in my students' opinions. My team will be revamping its presentation of "Top 3 Ideas" tomorrow morning to (hopefully) make it clearer where to comment. This is our last chance to press them for inter-team feedback before Ithaca in three weeks. Good luck!

Faculty chat summary

Thought I'd list my take on what we talked about. Please make additions/corrections.

1. Individual students will go to the other teams blogs, read their ideas and post comments. These comments are due by July 6th. However, some students have been told July 9th and may be posting over the weekend. Participation is mandatory and noted.

2. Faculty should remind students who have written comments in email to copy and post them to the specific ideas on the team blogs.

3. On July 9th, each team will post on their own blog, a description of the one idea that they will develop.

4. The individual teams will present their idea to the group at the Ithaca meeting in August.

5. The issue of "mixed groups" will be discussed and considered again in phase two of the project. Add faculty mentor?

6. Faculty should be posting and commenting in the faculty blog.

7. Faculty should be editing the project plan located in Google Docs.

8. Team meetings have been taking place by face to face, chats(AIM) and phone (Skype). What works best? What is the procedure for recording the Skype conversations? (Hijack?)

9. How best to practice and present group presentations? (web/conference call?)

Student difficulty finding 5 ideas on Team 2 and KU blogs

Kim and Patrick:

From one of my students re: finding your teams' 5 ideas on the blog sites (in order for her to comment):

"For Team 2 (Kim's group), I could only find one consensus topic on the blog, so I commented on that one idea. I got into the KU blog, but couldn't seem to find any explanation of their top 5 ideas. I find where they were just in a bulleted list, but nothing about them to comment on. I think I must be overlooking something really obvious? There was no one from the KU group in my mixed group (listed on Google Groups), so I just have nothing to go on."

Can you help? Many thanks.

Comments feed

Sam, is there any way we can get a comments feed on this blog? I have the feed to the posts running in Thunderbird now, but it is of little use without the comments.

On hyperlinks and hyperlinking

I think we need to encourage our students to make sure that every time they put a URL in a post, it is also an actual hyperlink. It is bad web form to write out a URL at all, but to do so without hyperlinking it is really unacceptable. I know we are dealing with some n00b5, but that makes it even more important for us to convey the importance of web standards now, set a good example ourselves and demand proper form from the beginning (too late!). Better late than never.

Team URLs

I gathered up the team blog URLs from various places and checked them out. If we want the students to comment on the ideas, I think we need to have them organized. If the ideas are listed separately and at the top of the blog, then the students can read them and comment on each one specifically. Based on my team's experience, they have good intentions but the process so far with self organizing the mixed groups has been stressful. I would like to have this new process of commenting on the blogs as organized as possible. Judging by the email I am copied on from various mixed groups, there is still a lot of confusion out there.
K State (Sam)
KU blog (Patrick)
All-Knighters (UNLV) (Charlotte - Anne)
Team Voltron (# 1) - (Marybeth)
Team 2 (Kim)
Team 3 (Marjorie)
Team Awesome (#4) - (Darcy)

On the same page

I have no problem with transparency or posting to the blog instead of email. I only hope we all check the blog as frequently as the email. Maybe there is a way to have the blog notify us when there are comments or new posts.

The ideas for my team, (team 3) Team Awesome, are at the following URL:

http://teamawesomeinnovationincubator.blogspot.com/

Logistics: Are we going to post a global so that all teams get the same information?
1. Where are the team idea URLs posted? Are they all going to be in the same place for easy access by the students?
2. Are there written instructions as to what we expect the students to do with these team ideas?
3. How are the instructions getting to the students?
4. Does each student comment on each idea from the other teams by leaving a comment on the blog? Will there then be expected to be about 30 comments per idea?
5. What is the deadline for commenting on the ideas?
6. What is the next step? Charlotte sent out a copy of our schedule but it still contains the original expectation of a presentation on July 2.

Are we meeting at 4 p.m. on Monday for a phone chat?

RE: the next faculty conference call, comment period and the need for transparency

Monday, July 3 @ 4 PM EST is fine with me.

I agree that more time was called for during the feedback process. So, what is the deadline now? I suggest July 9. Anyone? Bueller?

Darcy, I'm still missing your group blog address.

I'm going to be the broken record here, but ALL of these emails we keep exchanging should be taking place on the faculty blog in posts and then in the comments section. I understand the trepidation of "making sausage" where everyone can see, but that is one of the goals of this project. This isn't transparent and it needs to be.

So, in that spirit, I posted this email as a new post on the faculty blog.

Feedback clarification

At one point in the conference call today, I thought we agreed that each team would post their top five ideas in their own team blog, and students from other teams would come in and use the comments fields to give feedback on those ideas after we distribute links to all of the blogs.
That does seem to make a lot of sense.
We could then assign each of our students to go to the other six blogs and leave their signature, as it were. They could do it on their own time frame without negotiating a specific "meetup" time, and it would show who is (or isn't) participating.
In the last couple minutes of the conversation, the feedback vehicle ended up back in the Google Group, which I think we all agree is a klunky way to have a conversation. The best use of Google Group seems to be as a bulletin board/message board/list serve, not for dialogue.
What say you all about doing the blog/feedback idea?
(Please forgive, but I for the life of me couldn't explain to Darcy just now why we tilted back to Google Groups instead of blogs ... my brain aches ;-)

The blog roll

Here is the KU blog link: http://ehub.journalism.ku.edu/innovation

You can either add yours to this post or add them in the comments section so we can all easily find them.

Difficulty with mixed group communication

Four of my five Team Voltron members had not connected in with their mixed group members as of last night. (We had set a deadline of Sunday, 6/24.) They are saying they had e-mailed their mixed group members Team Voltron's five ideas several days ago and had received no responses thus far. Are you getting similar feedback from your folks? (Not sure why they are e-mailing each other and not talking on IM, Skype, etc.?? E-mail seems less efficient and interactive to me, but every one of them chose to e-mail the written ideas and await written responses.)

One Voltron member asked if he could avoid the mixed group process entirely. I went over creation-netting and the importance of tapping into the greater wisdom of the group to help fine-tune ideas.

I've encouraged them to contact their mixed group members again, before our next check-in on Wednesday. What have your experiences been?

"Second-Earth"??

Here’s an interesting article with predictions about the Internet 10 plus years from now (a Second Life - Google Earth, 3-D-like melding):

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18911/page1/

one more tool

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/

Might be an interesting tool to use to share presentations

If folks don't have secondlife capability - we need another tool for collaboration and for sharing presentations - here's one suggestion

https://www.yugma.com/index.php

it's free for 10 people
you can share desktops (so we could see presentations)
you can skype/call long distance in to do audio
you can text chat

Second Life and Philanthropy

The MacArthur Foundation (gives out genius grants and funds numerous PBS programs/NPR) is now on Second Life (see NY Times article below). I am sending this article to my students to show them another creative use for this virtual world. Several Volton team members are resistant to SL because of strange interactions they experienced there. I need to inquire further (for our research purposes).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/us/22virtual.html?th&emc=th

Research 2

A student made an observation the other day which triggered some interesting thoughts. She felt the project should have included non-journalism students because journalists are the ones most threatened by new technology. In other words there is something "wrong" about asking journalism students to come up with innovations that are likely to relegate them in the periphery of the news writing process while mainstreaming citizen participation and engagement. She also observed that the process might have benefited from surveying ordinary citizens to find out what features they would love to see in news sites. Which brings me to my point about possible research opportunity. It seems to me that in future, one could design a research project that might include a team of ordinary citizens as a control group and test a few hypothesis on innovations processes and invested populations.

Research

There are interesting tensions playing out in my group between students who are experienced journalists and those planning to join the profession. The experienced folks think the changes in the media industry must be guided by journalists and cannot envision a future where journalists would be forced to surrender their privileged positions to ordinary folks. There is an article in the May AJR issue that captures a similar conversation in several media houses. I thought it would be a good starting point for future research on how our view of our role as journalists is likely to influence the type of online journalism models that we are likely to pursue, regardless of the ICT tools out there. Gannett, for example, is totally against the idea of citizen journalism and prefers to use citizens for leads and story ideas.

Check in conference

I'd like to ask Brandy to reserve us some conference call time Tuesday evening at something like 5 p.m. Eastern.
Would that work for everyone? I think we can make it later with no problem if that is easier, b/c Brandy would not have to be there. We should all be able to call into this from home or wherever.
Speak up and I will ask her to set it up Monday morning.
It sounds like there's lots to chat about ... not to mention the virtual margaritas ;-)

Faculty check-in?

If we can come up with a time next week for a faculty check-in chat, I'd also like to discuss the project-wide presentation on Second Life, Monday, July 2. Numbers of my folks have hardware issues that limit their access to SL (me too). Is there another possibility here? This issue emerged on the final night in Ithaca. I don't think we have resolved it thus far. Thoughts? When might we pow-wow next week? Are evenings good for the faculty group? M-W-F mornings are good for me too.

Thus far

We've met four times thus far and I am impressed with my students. They have more good ideas than we can use or are feasible with our resources. Yes, there is a lack of certainty that the ideas they are offering don't exist in the rest of the world. Honestly, I don't see how that can be avoided. With Google Labs and Microsoft out there operating in this same thoughtspace, our best bet is to find a concept that is simple enough to achieve in the time available but esoteric enough to dazzle the mind. Right now, I am enamored with Mailbox Maps for it's elegant simplicity and am using that as a guidepost for the students.

To Marybeth's point, I don't know that this needs to be something no one has ever conceived of before. No, a simple mashup won't suffice, but taking an old idea and turning it upside down and sideways may just amount to genius. Think of the powersquid. It is, at its core, the ubiquitous powerstrip. But this innovative design was award-winning and makes most people scratch their heads and say "Why didn't I think of that?". If we can achieve a similar result on what I consider a more important facet of life, I would feel successful.

The student's have it narrowed down to five ideas and are zoning in on one in particular, but the final decision hasn't been made (to my knowledge).

Tomorrow (Friday) is not good for me and I have another call set for Monday at 1:00 p.m. CST. Any other time on Monday OR Tuesday after 2 p.m. CST is good for me.

Real conversation and virtual margaritas

First the clarification : What we faculty types planned in Ithaca was that by the end of this week, each of the 36 students would gather in "mixed groups" with the other six As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es to talk about their ideas. (This has nothing to do with the "mixed teams," which refers to all teams except Kansas and Nevada). Each student on every team was assigned an A, B, C, D or E in Ithaca, and it looks like most of the students remember their letters. We set up the Google group so they could sign up under their letter designation and contact each other to arrange to meet and talk about their ideas.
It looks like that is going reasonably OK, although I don't know if Marjorie's team is in there. I'm getting email addresses from Brandy to make sure they're looped in.
(The pages show we We have 3 As, 7 Bs, 6 Cs, 4 Ds and 5 Es, for what that's worth. That adds up to 25, which is a far cry from 36 ;-)
I'm also getting digital copies of our calendar and project plan to post in the Google Group for handy reference.

Now the question: How about we (faculty) have an actual real live (audible) conversation just to touch base and do a reality check? The generous and all-knowing Brandy has offered up Park School's Webinar account so we could all dial in at once ... (I could arrange for virtual margaritas on the River Walk in Second Life.)
Does 3 p.m. East Coast time Friday work for anyone else? I can't remember when Sam's leaving for Kenya, but if he's still here next week we could do it Monday or Tuesday at 3?
What say you?
Sam -- What's your sked?

Process Strong, Content Weak

We had perfect attendance for our Skype chat tonight (with one member checking in from Ecuador)! Team members are respectful, offering good questions of each others' ideas and solid feedback. And while the ideas sound creative and full of potential, each team member comes to the table with almost no research on their demographic (local community), no sense of possible competing products/platforms, and little to no mention of new tools/technologies they have discovered in their explorations. Most of their ideas utilize tools/functions similar to Google, Digg, MapQuest, nothing original or new. I am constantly encouraging them to research and investigate what's out there. And posts to our blog seem to happen an hour or two before a Skype call, so not a lot of interaction and querying of each other in between chats.

My question: is this okay? Shall I continue to encourage, cajole, prod and settle for the limited results I am receiving? Should we send a faculty e-mail to the entire group stressing the research component? Should Dianne weigh in with the students? I'm trying to stay somewhat hands-off with my team, but I feel like there needs to be some kind of re-focusing on the mission/seriousness of this project. I'd love to hear your perspectives/experiences. Sam? Marjorie? Patrick? How are things going for all of you?

Best, Marybeth

Mixed group question

I am about to send a project-wide email asking the students to sign in on their designated mixed group page in the Google Group.
I'd like to add in that note that they are supposed to communicate with each other and the students are to arrange mixed group meetings.
My memory and Darcy's is that they make the arrangements and meet on their own, with no faculty intervention/prodding/arm wrestling.
Is that everyone else's impression?

Participation Issues

Hi guys - wanted to c heck in to see how its going with all the teams. I don't see many teams all filled in on the mixed group page on the google groups. And there hasn't been much chatter here on the blog so thought i'd start some.

My groups is effectively down to 2.5 people. 2 haven't made it to the last 2 chats, haven't contributed any ideas, and haven't emailed (not even lame excuses). one of the five is doing kick-butt work - at all the chats, lots of ideas on teh blog, lots of ideas during the chat. The other sort of active person posted 4 pretty good ideas to the blog, missed one (of 3) chats. The half person is late to chats and missed the last one entirely even tho we scheduled it after he got off work, and he's only posted a couple of not very well thought out ideas but at least he posted something. I have emailed everybody in the group with expectations after the 2nd chat when 3.5 people didn't show up.

I know one team had someone drop out after the first couple of days because they realized they didn't have time to do the job justice - that's responsible (slow on the uptake about the project maybe, but responsible)

My response is to treat it like a job/paid internship. Fire the 2 who haven't contributed and see if their schools have alternates, although it is getting really late for them to start contributing ideas. Put the sort-of-responsive person on warning that he could be the next to go if he doesn't step up to the plate. Letting them continue is not fair to the 2 who have actually been doing some work. Their behavior is disrespectful to the other team members and wouldn't be tolerated for long in the work place.

ANybody else having this problem? Anybody have any ideas? It is up to us, the faculty in charge of the teams, to come up with a solution. So - what do you all think?

Kim

Hard news question

Any input for me on this student-question posted previously??

"A question arose about whether the platform the students are envisioning needs to focus primarily on "hard news" topics. I know they can develop "entertainment-oriented" ways of delivering news and info, but are there parameters on the actual content being "harder" rather than softer news? I didn't think so, but wanted to check in with you all.

Many thanks,
MB

Student interaction issue and some questions

I'm not the researcher among us, but my understanding is that we faculty folks are supposed to use this blog as a shared journal of this process to be used as a digital record for research.
If we use the "labels" or "tags" consistently, we should be able to use that as a taxonomy to search back for areas of discussion or notable incidents for future reference, research or lessons learned.
So in keeping with that, I am labeling this entry "friction" and "mentoring." I'm sharing an incident from my team from this week because it should be noted for the record and also because I would be interested in your feedback as we all navigate new terrain on this project.
(In the interest of clarity, I am naming the student below. I can go back and "unname" her if others among you think I should. Blogs have big erasers built into them.)
One student on the All-Knighters team left me a voicemail Monday night saying she had decided to withdraw from the group because of "issues" with her teammates. She is one of only three ESTJs in the student group. (I mention that for future reference, not because I feel competent to interpret anything from it now.)
When we finally talked by phone Tuesday night, Lauren referred back to some friction late Saturday afternoon, during the students' four-hour Creative Project Assignment. Lauren said she left the room to get supplies, and when she returned, the group had made a dramatic shift in its approach and "idea." Lauren also said her teammate, Jenna (the only ENFJ among the students), was "making it all about her."
There was some confrontation between the two, leaving both feeling unhappy. After Angela's presentation in the auditorium Saturday (which included her prescient reference to the "self-centered follower"), Jenna had pulled me aside and gave me a somewhat tearful version of events. I was able to persuade Jenna to drop her initial plan to not eat with the group, and sent her off to join the rest of the team for dinner.
Tuesday night when we talked, Lauren said she had concluded that she had only one ally on the team. She said others had supported her privately, but not in the group. She also said others were unwilling to have a frank group discussion about the process. She said the lack of respect and candor were making her too angry to continue on the team.
I was able to dissuade Lauren from quitting and I did convince her that her perspective, voice and life experience are important to the success of the project. I pulled the loyalty card as well, telling her that it is important to not let me down.
I'm left with a lot of questions, including how I should best address this with the team. I am inclined to reiterate what they were told last weekend: That they need to have a frank discussion and come to agreement on how they will make decisions and how they will deal with dissent and friction. Do any of you feel like you have done that successfully? Can you share any insight on this? This counts as mentoring and not directing, right?

thank you in advance,

-- charlotte-anne

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