For my artifact, I created a Microsoft Sway presentation on a previous Environmental Learning class. My original project was a flyer on Microsoft Word, but I changed it to enhance communication and collaboration.  Microsoft Sway promotes communication and collaboration by offering interactive presentations. They allow viewers to swipe through slides and offer the ability to add multimedia content directly into the presentation. Sway also offers the ability to integrate with Microsoft 365, this can give access to other people who you may wish to work on presenting with. This promotes collaboration unlike other presentation tools by allowing students to work together and communicate their ideas. 

For my artifact, I made a mock approval rating system based on answers supplied by my students. I would collect answers via Google Forms, and in the next class, display the approval rating based on the responses of the students. I would then compare the class's opinions to public opinion polls. I feel that this infographic would help spark meaningful conversations about why we approve of presidents and why, providing the students with an outlet to discuss their own opinions in class with their peers.

Explain Everything is a great tool to enhance communication and collaboration and is especially better than our original method. In our original method, we just hopped on a Zoom meeting for five minutes, came up with an idea, and attempted to assign roles to each group member. However, after the Zoom meeting, I was very confused and had a few unanswered questions but I did not speak up. Due to that, our presentation did not go as planned. Therefore, the digital whiteboard could have been used to address everything, answer any questions, and lay out the plan very thoroughly. Explain Everything also can host virtual meetings and Zoom has the Zoom Whiteboard, which is a similar tool. So my group could have used either tool to enhance our communication and collaboration.

The artifact I chose to use is called Basecamp, which is an online team organizer that allows you and your group to organize every part of your project onto this online platform. While scrolling through the website, there's practically nothing that Basecamp doesn't offer. Some things that it offers includes an online calendar so that groups can collectively see what they have to do in the near future, chatrooms so that everyone can easily communicate with each other, and the ability to upload docs so that everyone can access it. The main reason I like this website for group projects is because it is an all in one website in which everything you'll ever need for a group project will be on one website. This means that if you ever have to message your group mates, see others works, or just what you have to do for the week, it'll all be on here.

With the google survey, I was given the data and then only able to scan the answers over myself, and then covey to the class my findings. With answer garden, I am able to display the information to the class in a more creative method. I also believe it is a more interactive manner of conducting a survey, and it allows students to search for and see their own answer on the projector,  rather than simply listening to me list off the top music genres that students listened to. With google, I was able to convert some of the data into bar graphs, but I believe that the AnswerGarden conveys the same information in a more creative and fun way that would keep students more engaged.