A few weeks ago I had a group meeting for a project in another class. There were three of us there, but we did not all think to bring our computers, so we were forced to edit a document on a single computer screen. Since only one person could be directly in front of the screen, it was relatively hard for the other two members to follow along on such a small screen. The display angle created an obstacle for the two other members, and the fact that only one had direct access to the keyboard was also incredibly inconvenient. The orientation of the group physically also caused problems when the group members were trying to view the screen and work on paper because there was not enough room to do both comfortably. Coordination issues arise when only one person has control over the system being used.
Since we only had one computer, we could also not easily reach other resources such as our class links on the internet. As Scott wrote, “Typical desktop computers do not effectively support co-located, multi-user interaction because of their underlying one-user/one-computer design paradigm. As computers become pervasive in society, digital information is more often required during collaboration. However, people often convert this information to paper-based media, make modifications, and then re-convert it back into digital form.” This was extremely evident in this case. We were forced to use the paper copies of the articles that we needed to cite if we were to work simultaneously. Once the information was found, the one person on the computer was forced to type in everything, rather than copying and pasting. This was ultimately equally as inefficient as interrupting the person with the computer in order to find the info online—which would have been necessary if we didn’t have the information in a paper copy. It created more costs to our co-located collaboration.
Single display groupwork such as this does not support fluid transitions between activities, transitions between personal and groupwork, or simultaneous user actions.
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I completely understand where you are coming from in this post. Group projects where everyone is gathered around one computer make things so much more difficult. Not only are you unable to split up the work amongst everyone in the group, you all have to hover around a little computer monitor. Working efficiently and successfully in groups can be quite difficult. Finding the technology to assist group collaboration can be even more difficult. It is important to consider the needs and desires of the group when choosing the best way to collaborate.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what I wrote about. One thing that I didn't bring up in my own post, but was considering, is the questionable effectiveness of multiple monitors. You mention that it would have been useful to access the reading, and I agree with that. One thing that stands out is that there is still only one document that is being created, so I wonder how this would be distributed among group members? Would each member take a section? Or perhaps you could find a quote in the reading and send a digital copy to the elected "typist" so that they could paste it in.
ReplyDeleteSingle group work doesn't allow fluid transactions between activities, but multiple group members each using their own single display may still pose problems in this area. Grounding would need to occur so that all members knew when to change activities and how to do so.