COMPETENCY M

“BENEATH THE RULE OF MEN ENTIRELY GREAT,
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.”-Edward Bulwer-Lytton

M.
Demonstrate oral and written communication skills necessary for group work, collaborations and professional level presentations.

      Many of the classes I took while in the SLIS program emphasized the importance of group collaborations. Although all my coursework was done online, I had many interactions with groups through various forms of technology. Elluminate was used frequently in every class to allow classmates to discuss coursework and professors to answer questions orally instead of just through email and discussion boards. I was concerned when starting the SLIS program that I would miss out on meeting fellow students and forming lasting professional relationships. However, group work in multiple classes has allowed me to form bonds and to collaborate with many students from all over the country.
      For Library 204, Information Organizations and Management, I collaborated with a group on a strategic plan (Library 204 Strategic). Using email, Elluminate, GoogleDocs and Meebo I was able to communicate my ideas to the group and to share in discussions based on our mutual work. To finalize our project we created a PowerPoint presentation that was presented to the class during an Elluminate session, every group member spoke for a few minutes while sharing the PowerPoint slides with the class.
      In Library 210, Reference and Information Services, I created a group wiki for the first time (Library 210 Wiki). The wiki was difficult for me to understand at first, however one group member had a lot of experience using wiki's for work and he set up a training session for our group using Elluminate. After the group learned how to build a wiki we divided up the assignment and each worked on our own piece. Using a GoogleDoc we complied all our information and discussed it once again using Elluminate. A Meebo chat was organized between our group members which allowed us to finalize our project.
       Another group collaboration was a wiki for Library 263, Materials for Ages 5-8 (Library 263 Wiki). I had previous experience creating a wiki in Library 210, I was able to coach a few of my group members who had no previous experience. My group chose to use email and GoogleDocs to share our information. Each week we would submit our progress to the GoogleDoc and then email our opinions to each other. This was a slow process that created a few problems when group members were late or did not respond. A few days before our wiki was due we set up an Elluminate session to work out any kinks in the project as a group, which led to a successful final project.
           


References

Library of Congress (2006). On These Walls. Retrieved July 20, 2011 from http://www.loc.gov/loc/walls/

Evidence:
Libr 204 Strategic Plan Powerpoint