Collaborative

A response to the The Collaborative Dining Table Activity
created by Stephanie Ferguson (@stpark)

Number of views: 167

I decided not to choose a dining table for this activity because it didn’t feel representative of this particular project. A dining table felt too formal or restrictive! Instead, I chose an image of people sitting around a campfire because part of what made this project successful was how well we all meshed and the relaxed feeling that really allowed the collaboration to flourish. The team was made up of both Indigenous and non-Indigeous people with very different roles. We all had such varied skill sets and differing backgrounds yet everyone expressed that they genuinely always looked forward to our meetings together. We really valued and respected each other’s unique strengths and happily listened to everyone’s ideas, opinions, and feelings before proceeding with any decisions about the project. It felt very organic and fostered an environment where everyone shined. Because we had team members living in different cities and provinces even, we did all of our work remotely online through Zoom, Email and MS Teams chat. Unfortunately, although MS Teams chat was a great communication tool for those of us at Trent, it did not cooperate for our one team member outside of Trent. However, we were able to successfully use Sharepoint to share files with her and gather her feedback via the comments tool. MS Teams is definitely something to consider and be aware of in the future if collaborating with those outside of my institution. I love using Zoom to meet but also really value the quick chat ability in Teams when you’re working on a project like this. I don’t love email except for larger communication needs. I don’t find it great for quickly connecting for information or answers. However, regardless of any tool limitations, I would jump at the chance to be able to collaborate with this team again or to experience a similar level of collaboration with another team. 🙂