OrCom Students in a Wiki World
In my recent post about The Third Place I talked about how we, Organizational Communication students, are involved with a lot of online collaboration activities; hence, the need for WiFi. In this post, I'll be telling you how exactly we collaborated for one project.
The above photo tells a lot about our group meeting habits. Yes we cannot meet without our gadgets. They’re practically THE STAPLE in every meeting. But there is more to what your eyes can see when you catch us in one of our third places. As Organizational Communication students, we learn a great deal in class about the different ways of collaborating online and how it is changing the way businesses and people do work. So we do not really need to look at each other straight in the eye just so we could come up with meaningful discussions. While preparing for the competition, we even talked via Google Chat and Twitter even when we were just a few meters apart. Online, there are also blogs that feature various online collaboration tools that groups can use for free. While class activities do not always require Organizational Communication students to collaborate online, we found the use of wikis particularly helpful when my team mates and I joined the 2009 PRSP Grand Prix. Here we decided to experiment with Springnote, as suggested by Alvina, since it is both free and user-friendly.
How was it helpful? First, since we are a team of 7 people, it gets taxing to constantly email each other for updates our own research. Using online collaboration tools made the process easier for it allowed us to store all information in just one virtual container.
Second, since the competition entailed some paper writing, we needed to ensure that each section of the paper that was assigned to us goes well with the other parts that the other members are working on. The collaborative and real time writing and editing functions of wikis allow us to cross check without any hassle.
Third, since we can’t always expect our team to be complete during meetings and scheduled interviews, our notebook made it easier for the other team members to individually catch up without the need to bug other members on what transpired during the meeting. Of course this requires that someone in the group takes down notes in every meeting and patiently inputs it in the notebook so that the team members who weren't around can just take what happened from there.
The calendar function of Springnote also allowed us to schedule meetings and interviews while being mindful of each others’ appointments.
Overall, our first attempt at the Wiki World was a success albeit we encountered some password difficulties. And with more and frequent exposure to this and other kinds of online collaboration, I am sure that it won't be long before Organizational Communication students start taking the lead in incorporating this technology to the organizational processes of different companies in the Philippines. Ms. Ingrid Cudia, a BA Organizational Communication graduate, surely did well in incorporating the different ways of online collaboration in running Sieg Web Solutions. ** Team Gondo Gondo is a.k.a. Team Praxis








