Students typically have insufficient training in project management and enter the working world with inadequate collaborative skills. Furthermore, academic research indicates that faculty guidance can make a huge impact on their development. Enterthegroup.com is a free resource I created to help solve this problem I faced both as a student and instructor.
The site provides students with tools to collaborate on group assignments & projects. They create group pages which have tools like an Outline (for developing a strategy to complete their work), a Task system, a Checklist (for help on the steps of a project) and a Lessons Learned form (to help them learn from their work). There are also powerful sharing tools like a group calendar (so no one will miss meetings), polls (for group decisions), discussion boards and instant messaging. Also, users get email updates whenever a member posts to the group. There is also an extensive library of free articles that help students learn how to break work into tasks, schedule meetings and other project related topics.
There is also a virtual classrooms feature enables teachers to expand their classroom. They can use the site to share files (like readings, syllabi and assignment details), share a calendar (to inform students of tests, guest lectures etc.) and post assignments. Teachers can also create polls and post ideas or respond to student questions.
The benefit of having both features in one site is that students can keep track of all their classes and projects in one place. This makes it easier to monitor work and connect with classmates. Beyond a place to work, Enterthegroup.com is a place for students to interact with classmates in a safe environment and develop networking skills. The site has a blogging feature, to-do lists, personal calendar as well as a twitter feed and Q & A forum which makes ETG a more fun and interactive place for them.
Enterthegroup.com is completely free and has design similarities to Facebook so students pick it up quickly.
For more information regarding the virtual classroom have a look at this article or this article for more on the projects application.
This is a featured post by Sal Pellettieri, the creator of Enter the Group. You can reach out to Sal by contacting him at spellettieri1 [at]gmail.com. If you’d like to have your article featured on Edudemic, reach out here.
Pingback: Follow this! | edJEWcation