Sitearm Madonna presented on the theory of teamwork at today’s class. This was followed by a briefing on the Team Project No One is too Small to Make a Difference by John / Tae.
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Teamwork and collaboration
March 20, 2023Team Project – ‘No One…’
March 3, 2023This is the brief for this semester’s Team Project – ‘No One is too Small to Make a Difference’.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a universal call to action in the face of global poverty and the impact of climate change on our planet. Seventeen goals were agreed by all member states in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable Development. We have seven years left to achieve success and secure the future of humanity on Earth.
The United Nations call follows a Warning to Humanity issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists as long ago as 1992. They ‘feared that humanity was pushing Earth’s ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life’. Six years ago the warning was updated as 15,000 scientists from around the world published World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice.
French philosopher Bernard Stiegler suggests that the excesses of the consumerist model are responsible for driving the world rapidly towards a dead end. Speaking in London at the Work Marathon event in 2018 he argued that a radically new approach to shaping our society is required. Rather than allowing capital and technology to dictate we need to bring epistemological, technological, artistic, judicial, social and economic questions together in order to shape the future.
This calls for a rethink of our way of life are growing more persistent as evidenced by activists such as Oğuz Ergen from Türkiye and Greta Thunberg from Sweden.
In 2022 the UN selected Ergen as one of the six new ‘Young Leaders’ in the UNDP-Samsung Generation17 programme for his work on the problem of pollution in the Gulf of Izmir.
Thunberg, speaking at Davos in 2019 said ‘our house is on fire’ and implored world leaders to extinguish the fire before it gets out of control. Later that year she published her talks in a little book titled No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. If one small Swedish schoolgirl can make a difference in the world then it follows that we can all do so.
What difference can you make?
The Brief
Meet in your teams and discuss this text. Read the referenced texts and look at the videos to inform and expand your understanding. Find additional sources to deepen your knowledge and share these with your team members.
· Discuss your response to the issues.
· How does this make you feel?
· What might you be able to do about it?
Develop your ideas into a collective response and design an action plan in response to the crisis. Decide what you can do individually in your families, local communities or university. Agree on a joint approach and select a single action or a change that you think will lead to a specific outcome.
Develop a strategy to achieve your goal and an approach to communicating it to others in your community so they will join you in achieving greater success.
Submission
Build an installation in Second Life that explains your project to visitors and devise a guided tour that you will give to residents encouraging them to do something similar. Each team member should have a specific role in the tour.
Write a reflective review of the team project and how it progressed. Refer to team building theory and describe how it played out in your experience of the project. In particular, describe your own contribution to the project and to the team.
Class 5: Teamwork and Collaboration
March 7, 2022
Sitearm Madonna met the class at the landing point in the Çağ University Second Life Campus for his presentation titled Composing for the New Era – Teamwork and Collaboration Online. After ensuring everyone had arrived he led us to the ornamental pool where he had installed a presentation board filled with text and images. He had thoughtfully placed seating around the pool so that everyone had a good view and then seated himself at the top of the board to indicate where we should be focusing our attention. Using his avatar to guide our attention in this manner is a very useful technique that Sitearm has developed in recent years (an interesting example of something that could only really work in a virtual world where you can use the camera to zoom in on the appropriate section of the board).
Last week all the Project Teams were asked to meet in Second Life to complete the task set in the class and discuss the Team Project. After he had introduced some of the basic principles around teamwork, Sitearm asked each team to come to the front and report on their meeting in turn. It didn’t matter whether or not the team had actually managed to meet or not, whether the meeting was considered a success or not, nor whether all the team members were present. The opportunity to give and hear feedback from each team gave us all a sense of how difficult it can be to contact people outside of the virtual world. Teams used email addresses and Instant Messaging (IM) to try and make contact and arrange meetings. Individuals did their best but sometimes received no replies, or were unable to agree to a time that suited everyone. However, some teams were successful and in all cases the conversations have begun and teammates are beginning to get to know each other.
The students engaged fully and shared their experiences, frustrations and successes and it was clear that they did very well for the first attempt. Their enthusiasm for meeting each other and figuring out how to proceed is impressive.
Unfortunately, the TU Dublin campus wifi network would not allow connection to Second Life so only those students who had access via a phone hotspot, or those working off campus, were able to join the class. The IT Support Team are currently reviewing the situation to find out what happened and hope it will be resolved for next week.
John shared a notecard with everyone listing the team leaders from TU Dublin so now each team has a Turkish and an Irish leader to facilitate meetings and progress.
Following the presentation on teamwork Sitearm guided us to an open platform in the sky with an elegant garden populated with blue butterflies. Here he gave a brief introduction to, and explanation of, the metaverse. Not Mr Zukerberg’s Metaverse with a capital M, but the multifarious digital spaces that make up what used to be known as cyberspace (after William Gibson introduced the term in his 1984 novel Neuromancer) but is now more commonly referred to as the metaverse (after Neal Stephenson popularised it in his 1992 novel Snow Crash).
Sitearm concluded with a live demonstration of teamwork. He brought us to a lower platform on which he had placed pianos and drum kits that played when touched. After we had fun making plenty of noise he explained the colour coding and gently led us to a more musical output, leaving us all with an example of a team moving from chaos to harmony.
Class 4: Getting to know teammates
February 28, 2022This week we all met at Whole Brain Health where Tooyaa summarised last week’s lesson to ensure everyone has been ‘friended’, joined the ISP group, and is up to date on our progress so far.
John introduced the Project Brief and shared a notecard with full details. We reviewed the details briefly so that everyone had a sense of what they will be working on for the remainder of the semester. He asked everyone to read the brief in detail after the class and to meet in their Project Teams during the week to discuss it. Sitearm Madonna reminded us that his talk on Teamwork next week will outline an approach to working together. He will ask some students to share the experience of the first team meeting to help identify issues around working together virtually – so ensure you arrange your team meetings!
Lissena Wisdomseeker then introduced the Project Teams. The team at WBH had kindly prepared sign boards listing all the team members and made more t-shirts. Each team member could take one from the boxes and each shirt was in the team colour with either Çağ or TU Dublin logos on back. Once everyone had put on their new shirts we teleported to the area where students will be working on their projects and presenting them at the end of the semester. Each team has a large working space sufficiently separated so you can talk without disturbing each other. Lissena explained that each team would produce a Share Board today, to get used to working in SL. She shared a notecard with details of how to carry out the task. But, first, each team was asked to select a Team Leader, one from each university. This will make it easier for the WBH team to communicate with you over the next weeks.
It soon became clear that everyone would finish the task during class time so you were asked to complete before next week.
Class 4: Team Project – New Direction
February 27, 2020Before starting the class John asked if everyone had read the brief and, while some of you had, many had not. So, everyone was asked to read it now. John also asked that you read the requirements of your submission in the Assessment Unit on Brightspace to ensure you are aware of the deadline for completion, assessment criteria, along with the part of the project that will be group-assessed and the parts on which you will be assessed individually.
Once that was completed John asked for some initial reactions. Most of you agreed that while it is a difficult topic is is current and highly relevant. The main problem to contend with in addressing climate change seems to be our reluctance as humans to acknowledge the problem, to consider the changes we need to make in our own lives and to demand that those with greater influence face up to the reality and do something. We acknowledged the iron will of people like Greta Thunberg, who are unafraid of power and willing to name the issues and those responsible. You also indicated that presenting your projects to a room full of senior executives in a global corporation sounds intimidating. However, John reminded you that the two most senior people in the organisation (the chairman and the chief executive) are backing you.
John outlined your assignments for the coming week: to make contact with your group and hold the first meeting. He suggested that it might seem a simple task to complete in a week but in previous semesters many groups failed to achieve it. There was some discussion on how to make contact: do you share email addresses now? try to find each other in social media? hope to bump into teammates in RL? The logistics of arranging meetings online is somewhat different to doing so in RL. You need to ensure a common approach is understood by, and available to, all team members.
What do you do when (if) you manage to meet? John reminded you that the presentation board from Sitearm Madonna’s talk on Teamwork and Collaboration is still available in the class meeting room. Use it when you meet. Remember the stages teams go through when working on a project. Try to be aware of that when you meet so you can get the most out of your time together as a group.
Sunrise at Lauk’s Nest, the oldest complex build in SL, it dates back to 2004.
John proposed a visit to Lauk’s Nest for the final part of class. Notecards with information about the park were circulated along with landmarks and we all teleported there. Before allowing everyone off to explore John reminded you of the forthcoming deadline for submission of the Website Blog, part 1 for assessment. You must make the submission in Brightspace or John will be unable to award a mark and give you feedback.
Class 3: Teamwork and Collaboration
October 10, 2019
Sitearm Madonna shares his insights on teamwork with the class.
Sitearm Madonna joined the class this week to talk about teamwork and collaboration, both generally and virtually. His experience in the global oil industry and also in virtual worlds has enabled him to formulate a practical approach to collaboration which he supports with references to the vast amount of academic writing on the topic. As the graduate of the module who received one of the highest marks ever awarded he is well-positioned to understand your particular needs in working on the Team Project that will be introduced next week.
His developing interest in musical composition informed the opening of his presentation and he gave us a link to a YouTube video:
Sitearm went on to discuss the stages of a project and the roles required of the team members as the project work progresses towards completion. He asked for examples of good experiences of team work and poor examples and you had some great examples to share. The most common poor experiences were where one member tried to dominate and control the project, not letting others explore their contributions. Sitearm noted that where the dominator also has power and/or authority there is very little the other team members can do and the results of the project are going to fall very far short of the potential. The positive experiences were mostly concerned with successful brainstorming where the team relished new ideas and develop an approach that truly was better than any of the individual team members might have achieved on their own. You also noted that in a well-balanced team each person is supported in contributing according to their skill, leading to a satisfying experience for the whole team.
Sitearm also referred to the theory of persona. Speaking about the different personalities we might present in different social situations (eg, at home, in college, at work) and relating it to the avatars we use in SL, he suggested that the various roles that need to be filled for a successful team can be inhabited by any individual member – they are interchangeable and may be temporary – even though some people might be particularly suited to some roles. He also referred to the Greek origin of the term persona and how it relates to your purpose, asking you to consider ‘where your purposes come from?’ John reminded everyone that we will be picking up on this idea again in Class 16 when we look at virtual identities.
To conclude Sitearm told us about a recent paper he read suggesting that we all have 150 meaningful relationships in our lives. That breaks down into five people in our inner circle (family); 15 good friends; and 50 friends. It expands into 500 acquaintances and 1,500 people we can recognise. [This post was amended in December 2019 to include links to Dunbar’s Number in Wikipedia, Social Network Size in Humans by Hill and Dunbar 2003, and The Social Brain Hypothesis by Dunbar 1998.]
[Note: Sitearm Madonna has subsequently provided this edited video (47 minutes) of his presentation]
After thanking Sitearm for a most stimulating presentation, John directed you to Brightspace where the Team Project groups are listed. Here they are again.
You will work in these teams for the rest of the semester. John will introduce the Team Project in next week’s class.
Class 4: Team Project – Future Work
February 28, 2019John started the class by reminding you all of the deadline for your first assessment item next week. It must be submitted in Brightspace before 5.00 pm next Thursday, 7th March. But, don’t wait until the last moment – get your submission in early. It’s easy: just provide the link to your blog. Full details are given in the ‘Assessment’ section of the module in Brightspace. Remember, you must make the submission in Brightspace so that it is registered and John can provide feedback.
The University is carrying out a survey of staff and students using Brightspace for this pilot phase. Please take this Brightspace Mid-Pilot Review (Students). Your feedback is important so that improvements can be made before the full rollout in September.
It is important that you login to Brightspace regularly during the course of the week. The Essential Reading given for each class is a necessary preparation for our meetings but also provides background material to the subject of your blog posts. You need to be reading and viewing it so that you can cite appropriate examples in your writing. Take the short Quizzes to check if you understand the content. Although they don’t count for assessment purposes they are a useful way of identifying content you might not have fully understood. If you have any suggestions for improving the content please let me know.
Then we turned to the Team Project. In response to John’s query about whether you had arranged team meetings it seems that some have met and some have not yet met. It is important that you start meeting this week. You will remember from Sitearm’s talk last week that teams need time to form. So start working together from now on – visit SL, work on your class assignments, and begin thinking about the project. Give yourselves as much time together as you can to get to know each other.
There is a lot of detail in the brief and plenty of reading to guide your thinking and help develop your approach to the project. Use the time you have without classes next week to get started and become familiar with the material. Another important guide you should review carefully is the assessment rubric for the project. That gives you the criteria on which you will be assessed. There is no point in being busy on work that is not relevant so study the criteria for guidance on how to proceed.
Here is a short (viewing time is less than two minutes) extract from the class discussion:
Class 3: Teamwork and Collaboration
February 21, 2019
Guest speaker Sitearm Madonna talks about partnership team building.
We were joined by guest speaker Sitearm Madonna this evening. Sitearm is a graduate of the module, a former engineer in the US oil industry, expediter of projects in virtual worlds and musician, with extensive experience of team work. He spoke to the slides that will remain in the classroom for the rest of the semester. We were also joined by Dudley Dreamscape, another graduate of the module, professor at the University of Akron and guest speaker in a later class. John noted that both Sitearm and Dudley had performed so well on the module that they scored the highest marks ever awarded.
Sitearm started by asking us all to think of a time when we felt good about working on a team and to write down one word that would remind us of the experience later in the class. We were also asked to repeat the exercise for a time we had negative memories of a team. He emphasised that teams generally get projects completed, no matter how badly they perform. The aim is to continually strive to achieve better outcomes by supporting team development. This starts by building commitment and competence. Team members need time to get to know one another informally, in addition to the formal engagement, so they can perform effectively together.
Best practice for building teams that produce results.
Recognising the stages of team development is essential for managing time and ensuring that all members can contribute meaningfully. Each stage requires a different type of input and engagement. For example, when the team is in the ‘forming’ stage members may need to spend more time working together to develop cohesion whereas the ‘performing’ stage might require each member to complete their own contribution independently. Sitearm also described the practices of team work: brainstorming, deciding, briefing, and debriefing – explaining when and how to activate each one. Throughout all of this team members will constantly play different roles. When decisions need to be made it is important to have someone in the role of ‘coordinator’ or ‘shaper’ whereas ‘specialists’ and ‘team workers’ are essential to putting the project into production.
Partnership team building model.
Sitearm concluded by showing us his newly developed Partnership Team Building Model. It demonstrates the work a team needs to do in order to reach the goal of generating an outcome.
Following his presentation Sitearm asked for contributions based on his questions at the beginning of class. There were many good examples given such as Aestheicant’s experience of a team that worked well because everyone felt able to amend and improve on ideas; EvaKKCara’s satisfaction when a committed and hard-working team gained a tangible outcome at the end of the process; hummush’s comment that all members helped each other on different aspects of the project brief so all felt very well informed on the aim of the project; and JCraig1988’s discovery that his opinions and ideas tended to broaden out the more he worked on a team. Equally enlightening were the examples of negative team experiences: Alik98 recalled the embarrassment resulting when the lack of communication among team members led to a disjointed and terrible presentation; robadamson was dumbfounded when team members that didn’t show up for any meetings were shocked when they received no credit for the final piece of work; YuwenXing remembered the huge amount of additional unnecessary work that resulted from an unclear division of tasks. Everyone shared experiences and examples that demonstrated the importance of preparing appropriately for team projects and continually monitoring the health of the team.
John thanked Sitearm for a very interesting and informative talk and complemented the students on your engagement with insightful examples and reflective responses. Sitearm provided this link to the slides he used for the talk. Here is an edited version of Sitearm’s talk:
Many of you hadn’t picked up on the Project Teams announced on Brightspace this week so here are the details again. Please make contact with each other and read the preparatory material for next week’s class where we will consider the brief for the Team Project.
Project Teams.
Class 10: Preparing your presentation
December 6, 2018
Uploading images to Second Life
This week we looked at how you might present your projects in next week’s class. John suggested that you may do this in the classroom in SL simply through voice, with each team member delivering part of the presentation in order; or you could do it in any other location you choose in SL (but be careful to ensure voice works – it can be shut off in some locations); you could include slides to illustrate the presentation; you might create a video in YouTube or Vimeo and give us a link on which to view it next week; you might act out the presentation in SL; or decide on any other approach that you think gets your message across.
We looked at importing images into SL to use on slides. Firstly, you need to ensure you have selected the module group. This gives you permission to build in the classroom. We created slide boards. Then John gave some of you L$200 so you could import images. Don’t worry, this is worth less than US$1! It costs L$10 to import an image which can then be dragged from your inventory folder to the presentation board, as required. We tried this out a few times to make sure everyone could do it. You were asked not to litter the room with too many boards and to clean up after you are finished.
If anyone else needs some L$ to import images just let John know via the Facebook page. And, indeed, if you have any other questions about the presentation ask them on Facebook too – that way everyone will benefit from the answer.
We agreed on the following order for the presentations:
Red Group; Green Group; Blue Group; Mauve Group; Yellow Group
Each group has between five and ten minutes, so including set up time and allowing for the inevitable glitches, it would be wise to allow some extra time for class next week – we might run on until 9.30 pm.
John reminded you all that you will be required to write two more posts to your blog. One this week describing your final preparations for the presentation and the final one after the presentation, describing how it went and your final reflections on the project.
Some participants have not yet submitted a link to their blogs. If your blog is not listed here it means I have not seen it and will be unable to assess it so send me your link immediately.
THINGS TO DO BEFORE THE NEXT CLASS:
- Write the ninth post: to your blog describing your final preparations for the group project presentation.
Class 4: Project briefing
October 18, 2018John started class by reminding everyone who hasn’t already done so to send in a link to their blogs. To date there are ten blogs outstanding. You are reminded to read the module website page about assessment and note that your blogs will be assessed after this week, again after week 8 and, finally, at the end of the module. It is important also that you read and understand the criteria for assessment.
There was some discussion about the elevator pitch and questions about how to go about it. Some of you were unclear about just what was expected so John explained that this was simply an exercise to give you the opportunity to have your avatar stand up and make a presentation – just to give the experience. He suggested you could talk about your choice of avatar costume, your interests and skills or anything that you feel like. LouHug, bennagle, Whimseyy and PeterKeane all got the task over with – others will be called on at random over the next few classes!
Most of you had read the Group Project brief so John started the discussion by reviewing the assessment criteria. The importance of ensuring you know exactly what you are being assessed on can’t be overstated. There is no point in working really hard on something that yields no benefit so, read (and regularly re-read) the assessment criteria for the Group Project given on the Module Assessment page. John recommends reviewing the criteria at least once a week and after each group meeting.
We considered precisely what was expected under each criterion noting that the actual content of the project is only one of the six criteria. John also emphasised that the main learning from this project is about team dynamics and group work. You should expect to run into difficulties when working together: some individuals will work hard and contribute while others may not; some will never turn up to meetings; others will go off on tangents and produce work that is not relevant. DON’T WORRY. That is a very common experience in group and team work. It is exacerbated when you are working online. The point of this project is to allow you experience it in a safe environment. Your task is to observe this behaviour, reflect on it and offer a critical response informed by your understanding of how group dynamics and the roles to be played by team members. Your mark will be based on your own work and is not dependent on your team mates’ contributions.
The content of the project was selected to give you an opportunity to consider your role in contributing to society as you emerge as educated professionals. Despite the pressure to earn a living and compete you need to consider your wider responsibility to the global community of this planet as a citizen. We have been warned that we are exhausting our resources and will be faced with the consequences in the coming decades. It is your generation that must start the search for a new way of engaging with one another and our home planet. The references given in the brief offer some starting points for your consideration.
French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, whose writing is referenced in the project brief, is currently in Dublin for the DIT GradCam hosted Inter-Nation – European Art Research Network conference in the Wood Quay Venue.
Most of you have met, or at least attempted to meet, in your groups since last week and some teams have set up Facebook groups for communicating. For the next class you are to meet in your teams to talk about the project and how you might approach it. Remember, you are still at the ‘Forming’ stage of your team – getting to know each other and learning how to work together. You should begin the ‘Storming’ stage by starting to brainstorm ideas for the project. Don’t worry about deciding on any one idea this week – just talk about a range of interesting approaches you could take.
You should continue to meet regularly to work on the project and your blog-writing should reflect on these meetings and your progress on the project.
Remember to join the class Facebook page so that you can keep in touch with developments between classes, such as the poll about the day for next weeks class. The following week is Review Week so there is no class. Use this time to get started on your project – the presentation date will be will be around the corner before you know it!
THINGS TO DO BEFORE THE NEXT CLASS:
- Read: the texts given in the Group Project.
- Meet: in your teams to discuss the project and brainstorm ideas for development.
- Write the fourth post: to your blog reviewing this meeting (or, reflecting on why the meeting didn’t happen).
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 