With Thanksgiving around the corner, we can’t help but allow ourselves to reflect on the people that make us feel grateful for their presence in our lives—family, friends, job, the cop who let you off with a warning. What about the members of your group project?
See how thankful you are (or aren’t) for your fellow group members with the quiz below.
You’ve prepared for weeks to put your group performance before an audience, and to you it is nothing short of flawless. As you receive your grade back for what you perceived was something fantastic, you’re slightly disappointed with the outcome. What happened? Why isn’t your project number one? Well, from an audience perspective, there are many things that could affect your group’s project, and there are also ways to improve upon group projects, based on simple, focused tips.
Versatility is a great way to catch an audience’s attention. You and your group shouldn’t let one idea or act become the sole purpose of your project. Come up with other ideas and don’t settle on one person’s point of view. Brainstorming helps your group explore other ways to show people that you really put effort into your project.
A significant reason to why groups may not be successful is lack of communication. Use GroupTable’s discussion boards to keep track of conversations. Create a sense of open communication, not only with the exchange of ideas, but also with constructive comments and ways to improve upon your performance. These constructive comments can contribute to a memorable act.
Stay on task and try to get things done early as a group. Don’t leave the bulk of the work for one person. When a group doesn’t perform as one, your grade may suffer. There aren’t going to be three strikes; it could only be one, and your grade may be out of the race. A great way to keep on task is to set deadlines to when your group members should complete their assignment and learn their part. Incorporating a task list using GroupTable can help reduce clutter, and keep everyone on track.
Showing the audience that your group has talent can be easily done by committing to a plan of action. Create responsibilities for each member of your group to increase efficiency. Try creating a task list and spread out the work so that nothing is left for the last minute. Leaving everything for the last minute is an easy way for your group to end up with an underperforming routine. Lack of patience and planning may end up showing in your presentation. Don’t let this create a missed opportunity to move onto the next round and get the grade you’re looking for.
There are many opportunities to make sure your group project comes out on top. With careful planning, good communication, and time management, your group won’t have to worry about whether or not you will get the grade you want.
If you’ve been a part of a group project you know that they can definitely be stressful. Simply doing a search on twitter for the term “group project” or “group projects” will yield many results of students experiencing the pains of dealing with group projects. Well, there is good news….Group projects don’t have to drive you crazy anymore. GroupTable was created by a group of students to help solve that problem.
Jessica, GroupTable’s project manager/designer, put together this cool comic depicting the pains many group project teams that are not using GroupTable run into.
Enjoy…
What problems have you ran into while being a part of a group project team or assignment?
Do any of the scenarios depicted bring up memories of past group projects?
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
It’s the middle of the semester and you have that group project due in a few weeks. Group projects can be very stressful, but have no fear GroupTable, a student group management software has some tips to help you and your group project team.
1. Communication is Key
Communication is a key for a successful group to function. Maintaining frequent contact with group members will help everyone stay in the loop. If someone says something you don’t agree with don’t criticize them. Seek to understand their point of view and then express yours.
2. Assign Tasks & Set Deadlines
Assign tasks based on the strengths of each group member. Tasks should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. Assigning tasks and setting deadlines will keep everyone in the group
on track, increase accountability and keep your group from procrastinating.
3. Make Everyone a Leader
If you notice something that can be done better in your group, take on a leadership role. It’s a great way to enhance your leadership skills and ensure that work gets done. Each member of the group should act as a leader from time to time. Keep Organized Typically groups have a lot of files and messages being sent back and forth. It can be very challenging to keep everything in order and make sure everyone has the most updated information. Using an online group collaborative tool can help you manage everything.
4. Go Virtual
Sometimes it can be very challenging to get all group members together at the same place and time. Meeting online through chat or using a group discussion board can really make life easier.
Try GroupTable.com to manage your group projects and study groups. GroupTable will save you and your group from a lot of stress.
Good luck the rest of the semester!
