GroupLog Web Tool for online collaborative group work

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GroupLog Web Tool for online collaborative
group work
Dr Elaine Swift (nee Bloss) Mr Derek
Morrison Centre for Development of New
Technologies in Learning Dr Karen
Rowlingson Faculty of Humanities Social
Sciences University of Bath
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GroupLog

• Background
• Large student numbers meant it was becoming
  increasingly challenging to give students
  meaningful timely feedback in a seminar type
  scenario.
• Tutor has lectures with 150 students and
  workshops to practice skills but felt something
  else was required to facilitate group work.
• E-learning team initially looked into utilising
  the institutional VLE (BB v 5.5) but found that
  the VLE did not support type of group work
  required without a substantial amount of manual
  effort on the part of the tutor.

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GroupLog

• Background
• GroupLog was developed from the initial
  requirements for a simple, online, collaborative
  group work tool
• Tutor wished to give all groups the same
  activity
• Set a deadline by which all groups work must be
  submitted
• Be able to review all groups work individually
• Post a single piece of feedback that all groups
  could see

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GroupLog

• Background
• The requirements led CDNTL to look into the
  possibility of using some of the CMS
  functionality that appears predominantly in
  weblogs as potential solution to the tutors
  needs to gather work in and deliver feedback.
• In addition it presented the possibility of the
  students being able to see each others work thus
  introducing the opportunity for peer learning.

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GroupLog

• Present Prototype
• Students are manually divided into groups and
  given a tutor assigned login id and password.
• Tutor logins in and enters an activity with
  release and closing date. This is automatically
  assigned to all groups related to that tutor.
• Students log in to view the activity set. They
  are then free to determine how they wish to
  construct their response to the activity. They
  can save the response online before submitting it
  to the tutor.
• Once the closing date has passed, the tutor is
  able to review all the submitted work and
  formulate their own response to the activity.
• The tutor response and the groups work are all
  made available to the cohort.

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GroupLog

• Present Prototype Feedback
• Quotes
• It was quick and fast, much more interactive
  feedback when the tutor replied.
• It was simple to use.
• Didn't have to remember to give work in and
  bring it to lectures. Helpful to look at others'
  answers.
• Working as a group so idea's could be bounced
  off each other, the easy to use interface
  especially for blind and partially sighted users
  

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GroupLog
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GroupLog
Comments I think it is important to have
contact with a lecturer and feel even an hour a
week is enough to provide some motivation. I
don't think i would be very motivated if i didn't
really know the person i was submitting the work
to. Pragmatically, this is not possible with
the cohort size, hence the need for GroupLog. I
found this activity very useful since it allowed
me to access the different responses of the other
groups. It was also enjoyable to work in a group
and use Grouplog.
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GroupLog

• Further Development
• GroupLog has recently received funding from JISC
  as part of the JISC eTools programme to develop
  the prototype further.
• Better administration
• More editing options for activities and responses
• More flexibility with assignment of activities to
  groups
• Feasibility study into a portlet version.

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GroupLog
Further Information Contact e-learning team at
University of Bath e-learning_at_bath.ac.uk GroupLo
g web site at Bath http//www.bath.ac.uk/e-learn
ing/grouplog JISC eTools projects
http//www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?nameetools