For me, I am always happy to work in groups instead of doing individual work. When working inside a group, there will always be great ideas while brainstorming thus I believe that the wisdom of crowds really exists. Moreover, we can share our thoughts and problems that we encountered so as to achieve a better performance. No matter in school assignments or in work places, It is always easier for me to work in group than individual. Well, it depends on which kind of group members I have, but luckily, most of the time my group mates are very nice. =]
Talking about the working strategies in group projects, I guess most of us are more familiar with the parallel one. Because it is a fast and fair way to distribute duties and get things done quickly. In the internet world, I guess it is more or less the same despite of there is no obvious duty distribution. I am a Firefox user (Firefox introduction in Wikipedia), I think it is a lot better than Internet Explorer (free download link: Firefox). However, before I attend this week’s lecture, I never know that Firefox is created by a group of volunteer but not a company. I wonder how can they collaborate successfully if there is no obvious division of labour? Why people know which part they have to do and how to make sure the works are perfectly done by different experts? Do they have meetings? I really wonder.
Thanks for the post, that's a good question. Peer to peer collaboration is more likely to work if the tasks are sufficiently 'modular' and 'granular'. That means they can be broken apart into different modules, which people can work on individually, and then the whole piece can be reassembled later. Some sort of central organization (like the guidelines in Wikipedia) most likely helps people to identify the different modules and also work out how they can make a helpful contribution.
ReplyDeleteYes, Agnes. Although individual has abilities to finish their own work, there is a need of group work as team spirit, time managment and communication skills must be trained as no one work individually in real life situation.
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