Can you repeat that?

First things first, it was great to meet everyone in person today. Having the option to meet up online is great but it doesn't hold a candle to actually meeting people. We've got quite a few characters in class and I know it'll be a fun week.

With that said, Dr.Z's assignment to collaborate on a team project without actually being able to discuss face-to-face posed quite a challenge. This afternoon - Darnell, Deb, Marty and myself - otherwise known as the 'Dream Team' started out strong in class today. We met briefly, assigned roles and we were off. Ten minutes later... When faced with a challenge, I broke down and attempted to ring a teammate via the old 'can & string' phone. But, after a quick phone call (on an actual cell phone) I was back on track. Our group decided to meet via chat this evening to make final changes and it became a marathon of edits and repositioning, deleting, and addition of questions and wordsmith'ing' galore! At first, my head was spinning. I was toggling between windows (chat and docs). I was being asked to change 'this' and update 'that'. Thanks to my teams' patience and my brain finally starting to adjust to the information overload I began to understand the flow of commands being sent my way. Thirty minutes into the chat session our communication process became a well oiled machine. Practice makes perfect.

So the lesson I learned today is similar to what Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis mentioned during our Skype session about the roller coaster of new learning: first the challenge is new and exciting, then frustrating, and just when you're ready to give it up you began to see the light! Go, team :)