History Essay #3 Blog Reflection

1) Group Interaction
2) Use of Contract
3) Use of Wiki
4) Individual Progress....?

Throughout the time that was given to write the essay, there was group interaction, but not enough. Usually, every time we interacted, we would get off topic and some of us would try and focus, but the other(s) would become a distraction. I believe that within the time given, the group could have met more frequently and during the meetings, spend the time more conservatively. Over Thanksgiving break, Carolyn had e-mailed us and tried getting us together, but things just didn't work out; not to mention Britta was in Minnesota. So during the break, everyone just went off on their own researching and finding useful sources for the essay. When the essay had been first proposed by Craig and Ben, I got a start on it right away. I found literally about nine different sites, and narrowed it down to 3-4 sources. While I had been doing this, I saw the rest of my group, kind of just sitting around and multi-tasking. As they were researching information, they were carrying on conversations about random things and what not. I remember Craig had to come by and tell my group to quiet down a couple of times. Later I had shown what I have researched, to the rest of my group, and it became quite useful.

Although the group had many crazy things going on, I believe that we still somewhat maintained to follow the contract, even if it wasn't completely followed. Carolyn and Britta were the final editors for this paper, but later on it became Carolyn and Ben. Everyone did collect information, though the information I had found was mainly used. We divided the work evenly and I'm not really quiet so sure as to whether or not EVERYONE contributed their work on time. I'm sure everything was, but I made sure that for my part, I distributed to the rest of the group members right away, two days prior to the due date. In our group's contract, all members agreed to contribute equally, be punctual with work, and the quality of the work must be at least good.

I'm not so sure as to whether or not the use of wiki was constant. When I researched information, I added the sites to the wiki. Carolyn had also done this. Though, Ben and Britta had not. We referred back to our wiki to get the sites, but that was about it. For me, I didn't really need the wiki, meaning that I didn't need to constantly go back on forth just to check the information and what not because I had printed all the documents ahead of time, so I just used the printed copies.

INDIVIDUAL PROGRESS:

As for my individual progress, I believe that from the recent essay, the 2nd one, compared to this one, my individual work and what not decreased. For the 2nd history essay, I believe that I had done a lot more work and spent more time on the 2nd essay than what I had done for the 3rd one. From my point of view, I also believe that I put more effort into the 2nd one than I had for the 3rd essay. I'm not exactly sure of why this happened, but I'm sure laziness has something to do with it. I believe that I took advantage of the break that was given for Thanksgiving, in a not-so-productive kind of way. For this, I regret. Therefore this is why I believe that my individual progress had not progressed in the way I wanted it to.