Maryam+Rana-+analysis+and+reflection

=__**Analysis and Reflection- CCT-300**__=

__**Contribution – Timeline**__
- Nov, 02, 2006- posted group project proposal - Misconception of Perfection - Nov, 14, 2006- created my analysis and reflection page, posted contribution time line and posted my first reflection. - Nov, 22, 2006- created my media genre page- Talk Shows - Nov, 23, 2006- posted first draft for project 3 ( revised proposal, design ideas etc) First Draft - Nov, 29/30, 2006- posted final drafts, posters and essay for project 3 - Final Project - Dec, 01, 2006- continued editing and last minute changes were done to the final project - Dec, 08, 2006- posted the final reflection response.
 * note: none of my grammar, spelling and 2 to 3 liner edits have been noted in the time line.

**Date: Nov, 14, 2006**
1. Wikispace is a collaborative learning environment provided to the student body and instructors for a more interactive learning experience. I have had previous experience with wikispace in CCT-205 and am using it for the second time for our project in CCT-300. This space allows and encourages active interaction between peers and students and groups, allowing them to share their knowledge and contribute to others people ideas. Wikispace allows students to have access to a deep pool of information and ideas.

My personal expectations from myself are that I would I like to be as much as possible an active member of the wikiespace by adding as much as I can and contributing as best to my knowledge that I can to this information pool. However due to time constraints, it can be difficult to be a constant contributor to this space, and so far for me time has been quite the issue. The only complaint I have with this wikispace project is the same as the one I had with the CCT 205 project is that it is too demanding and time consuming.

The only advice I can give to new users is that time management for this wikispace project is very important. However, having used wikisapce before, I wasn’t very keen on using it again for CCT 300 as I wasn’t much of a fan for this type of learning and furthermore, I personally did not find wikisapce that much of help for my other course and maybe this is why I started so late on the wikispace project. However using it for the second time has changed my opinion about wikisapce. Though I was a little nervous in using it, I realized that wikispace is a much more helpful tool as compared to the other course. I find that the kind of information being shared in this course is a lot more of interest and relevance to the course material.

Date: Nov, 16, 2006
2.

The kind of postings I choose to contribute to are the ones, which I find relative to the course material as well as personally interesting to me; topics that I enjoy and think that others might enjoy and thus see their input on those topics. Furthermore, I like to add my perspective to other perspective and see what kind of reactions these perspectives start. Other than that, I choose to edit certain postings if they need to be in terms of grammar, typos and or spelling errors and or adding any additional links or visuals that might add to the understanding of the posting.

By adding, editing and or re-arraigning people’s work, we work together to support our peers’ work and thus strengthen each others knowledge and helps create a more concrete foundation for the wikispace community. I regularly check my postings to see the different sort of feedback and or additional ideas to my ideas, and I appreciate any editing that has been done to my postings as it is contributed by my peers, only to improve and deteriorate the material.

Date: Dec, 08, 2006
3.

One of the main challenges that feel that wiki has for its users is the time and commitment it demands from its participants. As much as I believe in collaborative work and community building, I just feel that maintaining of the wiki requires too much time allocation which can be difficult with other courses. Not being able to give that much time to community building, can have a negative effect in the sense that people wont really keep up with the material (falling behind, and eventually loosing interest) or the lack of new material being added will damage participants interests. Personally time management and allocation for wiki is extremely important and if not managed well can pose serious limitations to its users.

While editing others work on wikispaces, I found my self often hesitating to do so as somewhere in my mind I would think if I would be offending anyone, but that’s just how collaborative work is done. Editing work by friends is easier compared to editing an unknown persona work. Other challenges while working with wiki were minor issues such as text formatting and editing, where certain parts of the document goes bold and in trying to fix that, some other part of your text goes nuts. Little challenges like these can be irritating at times, but none the less can be overcome.

One of the many benefits and advantages of wiki is that it allows fast and easy communication. The response to questions between students and the professors was very efficient to the point where everyone was helping everyone else as compared to where only the professor can answer the question for a student. I personally love the free flow and sharing of information between the students where no one hesitates to lend a helping hand and such an attitude is greatly due to the wikispaces.

Overall I found this course to be very interesting and informative. What really worked for me in this course was the posting of notes and summaries on lectures and the course material. However one suggestion would be to reduce the wikispace community building project percentage as many students can not devote as much time as others due to other academic commitments and responsibilities. The most interesting project in this course was the final project where students were encouraged to create their own culture jamming project, I totally loved it.