MHRM 6100 + Week 4

So this is the second blog I am to write for school… I’m asked to discuss mobile technology and social network I’ve used for this class.

I haven’t used a lot of new mobile technology for this class, though I did download the Walden University app for my iPhone – VERY nice, but all it really does is take you to Blackboard on my mobile browser. Still. I don’t have to bookmark Blackboard and sign in each time, so I approve! I’ve also joined the Walden University group on LinkedIn, though I haven’t participated in any discussions as of yet.

One bit of technology I tried to use was Zotero. I read about it in one of our texts, E-learning companion: A student's guide to online success, by Watkins and Corry (46). It is supposed to collect your resources to make it easier to format your works cited page at the end of the paper. So far, however, I have been unable to get it to work… L

This is a shame, because if I’ve had marks taken off in my work, it’s been for incorrectly citing references. As a fine arts major, I’ve used MLA style for papers my whole scholastic career. I guess I’m having some trouble adjusting to the APA style. But I’ll get there, Dr. P! I’ll get there!

We were also asked to discuss what stage of Bruce Tuckman’s team-development model was our class currently in. Tuckman believed every team had four basic stages to it – Forming, when everyone comes together; Storming, when the “honeymoon” ends and people compete and disagree; Norming, when team members become less defensive and everyone is more open; and Performing, when the team operates in an effective manner (Chaneski, 2009, 34).

I believe our team currently finds itself in the Storming stage. The first couple of weeks of class everyone agreed with everything on the Discussion Board. There were no real dissenting opinions. But I feel the group is becoming comfortable enough with the subject matter – and with each other – that they can begin to disagree with one another.

For example, last week Denise said that she thought using social media to advertise for the manager position was a good idea. Denetra and I respectfully disagreed though. We felt that anyone qualified to fill that position would not really use social media and we felt comfortable saying we disagreed. There was also some disagreement among class members about whether hiring from within the organization was best for the company. The group is now offering dissenting opinions, which I think is good. We will all learn more if we look at things from someone else’s perspective.

References

Chaneski, Wayne S. (2009, August). The stages teams go through. Modern Machine Shop. 82(3), 34-36.

Watkins, R. and Corry, M. (2004). E-learning Companion: A student's guide to online success. New York: Houghton Mifflin.