Here is a great review on GroupTable posted on the Montgomery Educational Consulting Blog: How GroupTable Revolutionized the Way I Manage My Group Work.
“As someone who is getting a second round of practice on organizing multiple elements in life, my only advice is to utilize the tools around you—and for me, that tool is GroupTable.”
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It seems as though the semester ended last week, yet college students everywhere are beginning their college fall semester. Whether you are an incoming freshman or just starting your senior year of college, there are several tips that every student should consider when striving for a successful semester.
Maintaining a sane composure throughout the semester begins with time management. One of the biggest problems holding students back from success is procrastination. Bad planning comes from procrastination. Students often have the mindset that at the start of the semester they will have all the time in the world to finish assignments and begin to put them off. Their aspirations wind up feeling like a 20 car pileup. Staying on top of obligations can easily be done by arranging your schedule accordingly.
You can be on top of getting assignments done, but a failed exam can be the death of a grade. 
There have been too many instances where students think that doing all of the assignments will be enough to receive a respectable grade, when in reality exams count for the greater part of the grade. A great tip for studying is to study in spurts. Studying for hours on end and cramming before a test is not the best method of studying. Instead, study for about an hour before your next class, as well as after, and if that doesn’t work, create a study schedule you can stick to. If you intend to memorize something, you probably will.
It never fails: On exam day, there is always that one classmate who shouts across the room asking for a pencil or paper. Don’t be that one person. You may be seen as unprepared and negligent. Make sure you are prepared with the appropriate tools to be successful in the classroom. Are group projects a large portion of one of your classes? GroupTable is collaborative software that can help you manage group and study projects by saving time, organizing to-do lists, and creating discussions between you and your group members. You can manage all of your groups, including social organizations and clubs, within the program. Tools like GroupTable can greatly assist in time management, which is one of the most important academic tools a student can utilize.
Find a spot where you can focus on what’s in front of you. Don’t study in your room, because those video games will look much more appealing than the notes in front of you. If you have a designated spot chosen for your study session, make sure you bring proper materials, maybe a drink or a snack to assure you don’t leave your spot for anything! If you would rather study with another person or in a group, study with friends who are just as motivated to study as you are. Leave your cell phone in your dorm, and limit your Internet usage solely for homework or research, and avoid Facebook or Twitter.
No, that doesn’t mean finding the quickest route to your dorm room after a night hitting up the local bars. There are so many resources on a college campus that students don’t take benefit of. Take your own personal tour around campus to learn what your school has to offer. From academic advising and career counseling, to the gym and health center, there are countless perks that students don’t take advantage of in college. A college campus isn’t limited to the library and dorms; college is expensive; experience everything your campus has to offer.
There are many factors that could contribute to a struggling student. Not doing well academically does not necessarily mean you are a procrastinator, or lazy. More students are seeking mental health counseling than you think, and things like stress or emotional trauma can negatively contribute to a student’s performance in class. Academic and career counselors are also a good resource if you believe you need guidance. These resources are almost always free for college students; there is always someone who can assist you if you aren’t achieving what you believe you are capable of.
You’re in college now, and your parents aren’t going to be there to advocate what you should or should not do. The perfect occasion to assert your newly gained independence is in college. Carefully managing your finances helps your gain perspective on responsibilities. Take care of you and your body. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go to the gym on a daily basis; going to the doctor is something a lot of students tend to forget about as a college student. As convenient and tempting as it may seem, try not to let fast food be your go-to choice of food. Stay healthy, stay active, and maintain a reasonable sleep schedule.
I’m sure you know someone, or may even be that someone, who has changed their major more than they change their clothes. Find something you will enjoy. If you are stuck taking classes or majoring in something that you won’t take pleasure in, studying is going to be the last thing you will want to do. If you are passionate about something, you can succeed.
Becoming involved in an intramural sport or a club can help you take your mind off studying, lectures, and things that may be overwhelming. There are many benefits of getting involved with something on campus; you can meet new people, rid those isolated feelings you may encounter in a new environment, and become exposed to new cultures, experiences, and opportunities that may be advantageous to you in the future.
College is the perfect opportunity to gain some real world experience. Partake in community experiences, internships, seminars, or anything else that could help you try your knowledge in the real world. These are great learning experiences and something that can help your career during and after college.
We hope that you get the most out of your upcoming semester and that you found these tips to be helpful. Remember that GroupTable is always here to help you stay productive and on top of your group projects, study groups and clubs.
GroupTable is a simple collaboration software that helps you easily manage group projects, study groups and all of the other groups of your life.
We’ve listened to our users’ feedback and have added many improvements that we list below our demo video. We’ve also created an easy to use, cross-referenced instruction wiki that you can review by clicking here. You can get a quick look at these improvements by viewing the demo of GroupTable directly below.
Our team has listened to your feedback over the last year and has been hard at work. Today we are excited to share a sneak peak of all the great upgrades that are launching later this month.
The new updates will include…
Once you click “add a task” you will be prompted to enter basic information about the task such as who it is assigned to, the due date, what task list it is associated with, and a description for the task. You even have the ability to attach files to the task. After the task is created members of your group will have the ability to comment on the task and give their feedback. All files that are uploaded to a task will be also shared in your group’s binder in the attachments folder. This was designed to keep you and your group members from searching through all the tasks to find the file you are looking for. If a task was assigned to you, you have the ability to mark the task as completed. If this occurs an update will be shared with your group informing them that this has occurred. The addition of this feature improves accountability and project planning, thereby keeping your group more on track and efficient.
The event page also has a section for comments. In this section members of the group have the ability to add an agenda, meeting minutes, event recap notes, and other related comments about that specific event. Members can also add video and images pertaining to the event.
Group creators now have the ability to add guests to their group and control what parts of the site they can see. You even have the ability to give guests access to certain folders in the binder that you have created, and not others.
We are planning on releasing these updates and more within the next two weeks!
We look forward to continuing to improve our software to meet your needs. We tremendously value your feedback and are eager to see what you think about the new additions.
See you at the Table!
>Dave & the rest of the GT Staff
Communication is key:
The hardest part when working with a group—especially if you’re unfamiliar with the members—is maintaining a proper stream of communication. Not only do you run into availability issues regarding everyone’s schedules, when working with people you may be slightly unfamiliar with, it can become difficult to express your feelings and ideas. Rarely does everyone agree 100% when planning a project or event. Try to be open minded and communicate respectfully when making alternate suggestions.
Assign Tasks and Set Deadlines:
Everyone has something different to bring to the table. Use these differences to your advantage when tasking out pieces to the project or event. This will allow everyone to play up what they are good at, and keep them motivated. Once tasks have been delegated, its crucial to hold everyone accountable and on track by setting deadlines and milestones throughout the process—not just the due date.The worst thing that can happened to a project is procrastination.
Make Everyone a Leader:
Too many chiefs and not enough Indians? If not predetermined, the presence of a leader will begin to emerge among the group. In many cases, you find that more than one person thinks that they can do something better. To help thwart a pending problem, be sure to allow everyone the opportunity to feel as if they are leading the discussion—usually regarding their respective task. This will provide a self-efficacy among the individuals in the group; rather than a hostile take-over.
Keep Organized:
Staying organized seems to be the most overlooked detail when approaching a project. People assume that their individual organizational skills will be enough to keep things in order—wrong. Many times groups neglect to create a predetermined protocol for sharing documents, maintaining communication, etc. By addressing this issue from the very beginning, you and your team mates will all be on the same page when sharing a new revision, or updating the time for your next meeting.
Go Virtual:
In today’s society, working remotely is essentially the way of doing business. Between the variety of hectic schedules and deadlines among the individuals in a group, most turn to the internet to conduct meetings. With the vast options the web has to offer, its essential that your group designate a primary mode of working virtually while in between team meetings.The meetings themselves can even be virtual. Be efficient with your time and use the available technology to your advantage.
Every day it seems as if more elements of our lives transfer from physical to digital…Schools are integrating iPads into their curriculum, fully loaded with the course materials; a meeting between an entrepreneur in the United States and a venture capitalist in China can be held via Skype on their personal laptop; phones are no longer just for talking, but as a fully-functional personal assistant. With so many ways of communicating, conducting business, and planning personal events, it can become overwhelming to try and keep track of it all.
In an age where we are provided with so many outlets for communicating, shouldn’t there be just one to aggregate it all? Well, now there is. GroupTable was designed to fully manage your business, academic and social lives, all from the same location. With the ability to upload, manage, task, and schedule events, GroupTable has now added a little more control to society spinning “technically” out of control.
Most times, programs similar to GroupTable are built strictly for the sole purpose of managing one’s academics, or exclusively for business—not GroupTable. As a program set up by you, and not by your business or university, YOU are the one in control of what you want to manage.
To give you a better idea of the endless possibilities that GroupTable is capable of, we have provided some of the ways our current users have already taken advantage of this unique program:
The life of a student is fast paced—especially when it comes to finding a time to meet for a class assignment. Now, a group can create an account and invite each of its members to joinWith the easy to use drop feature, GroupTable provides a Binder that each member can upload their portion of a paper or project. . From here, they can upload articles, revise papers, as well as set milestones and due dates in the calendar.
Greek Life: Homecoming, Philanthropies, and Socials-OH MY! Being in a sorority while in school, I can empathize with how hectic it can make life. Greek Life is like a full-time job in itself. Attempting to keep track of the endless events going on can become nearly impossible. Now an organization can set up an account to keep its members up to date. Not only can they take advantage of the calendar, but now there’s a single location to upload T-shirt drafts, applications for councils, as well as various announcements. Finally, there can be some organization to these organizations.
Travel Group: Hashing out details of a trip among a group can get tiresome…How many emails do you really need to send to remind someone about the deposit? GroupTable will allow for a group to upload travel documents, create a packing list, and even set a reminder for that deposit deadline.Now the only thing you need to worry about, what drink you’re going to order to cheers to a successful trip!
Business Proposal: Businesses are generally made up of various departments. As many of us know, communication between these departments, and even the department itself, can get lost in translation. GroupTable allows for say the PR team or the Business Development team aggregate their information to decrease confusion. Now when a RFP hits your desk, you can upload it and delegate each task to its respective employee, along with deadlines and important details listed in the calendar. Each member can edit each section, providing advice if necessary. Never again will you be scrambling to get your proposal in on time because two people accidentally provided the bio section.
Team Sports: Who’s in charge of team snack today? Wonder no more, parents, because your GroupTable account will allow you to create a team calendar—fully loaded with the practice schedule, game time, and yes, which parent is in charge of the team snack that day!
Study Group: Endless amount of work to be done before the big test or project, and no one to work with. Using GroupTable’s invite feature, you are able to send out invitations to join your study group strait to their email. This makes reaching out and coordinating everyone’s schedules easy and effortlessly, as you can mark on the calendar when someone may not be in town to join the study group. The calendar also proves useful for marking milestones your study group wishes to complete prior to the big project or test day.
Volunteer Group: Organizing fundraisers and events all while trying to maintain momentum is tough. By taking advantage of the features that GroupTable has to offer, you can send out the email invitation, reminders of upcoming gala’s, charts of money raised so far, and so much more! GroupTable can make any volunteer group run like a fortified business!
From Soccer Mom to student, or businessman to buccaneer–whatever your goals may be, GroupTable can finally make sense of every corner of your life. Begin by introducing it to your co-workers, classmates, church group, and watch how quickly your social, business and academic life harmoniously co-exist.
GroupTable has made Huddlemind’s Top 10 Best Classroom 2.0 Applications List. Huddlemind is a specialist social-media education and eventing company. They also own and operates a Social Network of Educators and Organizational Development practitioners at huddlemind.net.
Here’s Dave Duarte (Co-founder of Huddleminds) list:
1. Udutu: Easily author and publish courses online
2. Engrade: Web-based tools for educators – including tools to keep track of marks and publish assignments
3. Haiku LS: Easy, elegant learning management system
4. GroupTable: GroupTable is a web-based software and success network developed specifically to help student groups improve document management, project planning and communication.
5. Edufire: Learn online with live video
6. Global Classroom: Create elearning centres to train staff or clients.
7. Schoolrack: Manage class mailing lists, calendars and assignments in one place for both teachers and students.
9. Studeous: enhance courses with tools like live chat, discussion boards, podcasting, and text messaging.
10. Edmodo: Free private micro-blogging (like Twitter) for teachers and students.
Thanks for including us in your list Dave Duarte!
I recently came across a blog post done by Nick Rac, a student from Bentley University. He gave his personal account on how GroupTable helped his group not only eliminate many of the problems they had, but played a part in helping them win a $1,000 contest at his school.
With his permission I have re-posted it below.
Thanks for the great testimonial Nick, We’re glad we could help!
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During my junior year of college at Bentley University I was enrolled in a mandatory course entitled GB 301. The course was primarily a project class in which a real world business with a real world problem approached our class and asked for consulting. After being broken into groups of 5 we were given basic information, and a few assignments – from this we were to formulate a 70 page business plan for the client, this was a competition style course with a $1,000 cash prize for the winning team. This course is extremely well-known and feared by Bentley students as it is extremely time intensive is a serious time commitment for ANY student.
After holding my group’s first group meeting it became apparent to me that all 5 of us being able to meet in the same place at the same time would be extremely difficult and I began to search for free group collaboration software. I gave a number of products a good thorough testing and decided on one outstanding product: GroupTable. The next group meeting was introducing the application to my team and explaining how I wanted to implement it into our project – everyone was excited to use GroupTable and we all agreed that it would be essential to our group’s success…little did we know that it would probably save the project.
Over the course of the semester we met on a regular basis of twice per week in person and twice per week via GroupTable. Once the semester got a little busier we were all struggling to make our meetings and began meeting 4 times weekly on GroupTable and only once in person. We were the only group (of 20 total) which had implemented the use of collaboration software, which gave us a true advantage.
Typical college level group projects function in one of two ways: 1. All members of the group meet in a single location and work on each part of the pject one piece at a time. Or 2. All members meet, distribute the work amongst the group, disburse and meet again to review and combine each assignment. A group project using GroupTable functioned very differently. We were able to meet in person, assign out work AND collaborate with one another at any time. GroupTable’s clutch moment for us was when a group member had an unexpected trip home to London. He was able to meet with us, submit his work and share the ideas he had brainstormed during his travel time.
When one of us had a question or idea during the day we would simply post the question/idea to the private GroupBoard discussion board and wait for other’s input. During our online meetings the chat allowed us to talk real-time with one another to discuss issues, ideas and concerns. These two features combined with the “Binder” feature (which allows users to upload documents to share) were essential to the success of the project. At the end of the project we calculated that each group member met for 4 hours on GroupTable for every hour they met in person, impressive considering we averaged 250 hours of work PER PERSON for 14 weeks.
In the end we ended up winning the course competition and the cash prize. Our group was able to finish the project 5 days before the deadline (normally groups are running to Kinkos at midnight the night before to get the plans printed and bound). Our presentation was killer, our plan a huge success and we were able to do an impressive class presentation on how we used the GroupTable software.
In a business school like Bentley the majority of our courses require a large amount of group collaboration, Bentley teaches that in the business world of today you MUST be able to function in the group environment. This can be difficult for many people as it requires commitment, flexibility and pat. GroupTable addresses many issues associated with any type of collaborative work and I continue to use it to this day for large group projects.
Study Groups are proven to improve grades, however as with most group work, study groups can be challenging. Distractions can arise at meetings, schedule conflicts can occur between members and more. The semester is almost over for most students across the country and GroupTable.com a software for group projects and study groups has some tips that can help you get the most out of your study groups.
We hope these tips help. By managing your study group online you have the ability get all the benefits of a study group, but on your own time. Your group is no longer restricted to a specific time or place. By using the tips above along with GroupTable you’ll do great on those upcoming final exams.
Good luck!
A few days ago Mashable, one of the top technology blogs on the internet did a review on GroupTable. According to Mashable….
“The entire makeup of the service is quite impressive”
- Paul Glazowski
To check out the article yourself visit GroupTable on Mashable. We’ll keep everyone updated… There are a lot of really cool things on the horizon for GroupTable that will come to light soon. We look forward to sharing them with you.
Cheers,
Dave
Recently our development staff added some new enhancements to GroupTable. We always like to keep all of you in the loop so below you can see what we have added:
We are constantly striving to improve GroupTable to better fit your needs and look forward to any additional feedback any of you have.
All the best,
David Brim & The GroupTable Staff
