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I have used Driscoll’s model of reflection (Driscoll, 2007) to organise and summarise my thoughts.

What?

In this group task we used MS Teams to meet and communicate, and MS Sway to present our final project. We are distant geographically, so these felt appropriate. Within our initial meetings, we chose our topic, tools, and broad content.

We overcame some challenges as we all teach in different sectors, have different commitments outside of study, and have different ways of working. I was overwhelmed by work commitments - affecting regular communication with the group and work towards completing the task. Fortunately, Valentina was incredibly organised (and technologically competent) and took the lead in setting up the Sway presentation and ThingLinks – tools I have never used before.

Once my work commitments had subsided, I was able to be more active in my contribution.

So What?

I was apprehensive about making decisions without consulting other members of the team. Having a clear plan when undertaking group work is essential to achieve a successful outcome and ensures that everyone is clear about their role within the team (Nipp and Palenque, 2017). It would have been beneficial for us to have a structured plan, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities and regular meetings to overcome this anxiety.

Using new and familiar technologies within this group task has been useful. Ease of use is an important factor in adoption of new technologies (Ebadi and Raygan 2023). Sway is an easy-to-use tool that I could certainly encourage colleagues to use within their teaching to introduce different presentations learning opportunities to students.

Now What?

In future group projects, I would find it useful to assign tasks early, communicate more via text-based messaging, and set up regular meetings, something we did not do on this occasion. I would also plan for not only the content, but also the overall ‘look’ of our presentation to ensure that everyone was happy with the final version.

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I must admit I very much enjoyed being creative with technology and using things such as Canva to create video content, or learning just how powerful tools such as immersive readers had become.

It is something I might try and take forward into my own practice, for example creating video clips for my pupils to view outside of class.

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Sway is far from perfect - good thing I enjoy a technological challenge!

Some multi-modal formats are more open than others and the list of sites and apps compatible with Sway is reasonable: however, this hasn't meant there weren't issues with embedding media from other sites. It has reminded me of experience of building a computer and the amount of additional time and effort required to make things run smoothly.

Might using a different environment, such as Google, have been less troublesome?

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Despite the absence of seminars for an entire month to allow for reading and preparing materials, the challenges encountered were quite major in trying to balance these responsibilities alongside full-time work and other obligations.

In light of this, opting to use the Microsoft environment provided by the university has proven very convenient, as it has allowed for any-time, any-location productivity. The ability to check posts during a commute, access and edit the collaborative group Sway during work breaks, and engage with the platform across various devices and formats have been invaluable.

While it is important to acknowledge it has been far from perfect, the ease of access to the group task emphasises the significant value a well-developed platform can bring to the overall learning experience. Now, the only remaining challenge lies in encouraging my primary-aged children to try it….