Nicole
From CyberOne Wiki
This semester, I had the privilege of working with a group of my classmates on the promotion and development of FreeRice.com. I chose to work on this project because there are so many things about it that I found interesting and worthwhile, but the experience of the semester proved to hold lessons beyond my expectations. The best way to discuss the things that I have done and the things that I have learned is to divide them into two categories: (1) the underlying project (Freerice.com), and (2) the process of working with a team on tasks that are largely self-generated.
In my opinion, Freerice.com is a phenomenal example of a way to use the ever-expanding internet environment as a means of connecting people around a common purpose, in this case the twin goals of openly shared education and the achievement of ultimately philanthropic ends. There are many educational websites, several of which are interactive, but not very many, if any, that have as seamless a business model as Freerice.com. It is not a novel idea for businesses to sponsor philanthropic endeavors to boost their image, nor is it a novel idea to have some sort of reward system for children playing educational games. It is not even a novel concept to have an educational or a charitable website. I have never before seen, however, the combination of all of these concepts into a single self-sustaining website. It seems to me that this basic business model has a great deal of potential for achieving any number of goals using the internet as a medium. By learning about the workings of Freerice.com, I have learned a great deal about the use of the web for altruistic purposes.
The second major lesson of this semester is the possibility of having an open sharing educational environment. I am, of course, familiar with the popular website Wikipedia, but I must admit that I have always been somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to relying on the validity of its content. As such, I never truly considered the potential of using that model of a sharing network in other ways. In discussions throughout this semester of how the open network model could, and will, be used in connection with Freerice.com, I have been convinced of the merits of this design. With sufficient funding and technical support, the content of the site has the potential to expand considerably, practically indefinitely. In discussions with John Breen, my team members and members of the community, it seems evident that educators are eager to support an educational website that has the real potential to engage students and would be willing to contribute to the endeavor by submitting content or perhaps even contributing their time in an advisory capacity.
The implementation of an open sharing network for Freerice.com seems to be a very attainable goal, and one that will have an enormous impact on the continued expansion of the project. In the time that I have spent focusing my attention on the future prospects for Freerice.com, I have realized I need to be more open minded about the potential use of the internet as a medium for various collective efforts. I have learned that there are ways that submitted content can be reviewed and approved for publication without necessarily having to sacrifice the underlying concept of openly sharing education and information. There were a few other project-specific activities in which I participated and which contained lessons of their own. In drafting grant proposals for both the Google “Project 10 to the 100” and the Carnegie grant application, our group was charged with the task of reducing our large visions for the future of the project to a few paragraphs, and in the case of the Google application a video clip, in a way that appealed to a particular target audience. We also developed content to be included on a promotional webpage for Freerice.com. In connection with that task, Kira Stanfield and I made a video pitch aimed at students who use Freerice.com. Our goal was to encourage the students to remain engaged with the website by asking them to consider ways that they can improve and contribute to the website. It was our belief that we would eventually be able to develop an open sharing network with a sufficient quality control mechanism such that students, perhaps in connection with classroom work, would be able to contribute content and feedback to the website. By formulating our visions of the project into digestible communications aimed at different target audiences (i.e., student users, the public voters in the Google application, and the Carnegie board of reviewers), we inevitably came to understand our own visions better. I have learned that there is value in the process of reducing your goal to writing, or video, as it may lead you to better understand the goal yourself.
There were many lessons that came from the basic design of the course: division into small groups to work on specific projects. What made my group experience a bit different than the others was the fact that we began the project without any well-formed tasks or goals. As such, it fell to the group to decide what it was we wanted to accomplish and then to develop and implement a plan to accomplish it. As is often the case in group projects, difficulties immediately arose because of varying degrees of commitment and enthusiasm for the project. At first, I hoped that we would be able to find a way to work in a truly collective manner, but eventually it became necessary for one person to make a decision or proposal and submit it to the group for feedback. We ended up having to divide and conquer, working either individually or in pairs on small parts of larger tasks, and then providing feedback on each other’s work. Although I had envisioned a more collaborative approach to the tasks, I do not view our division of labor method as a failure, but more as a yielding to the reality of the demanding and conflicting schedules of law students. It was important to realize that the practical realities of the people involved would end up dictating the means by which we both developed and achieved our goals.
The experience of working in a team on a project for which we were the driving force in determining its direction was a great learning experience for me. I had the opportunity both to take the lead among my peers and to follow the direction of my peers when they were in the lead. The design of the course was such to facilitate this experience. The project itself, as I already discussed, was also a source of several lessons for me. Though at times throughout the semester I was frustrated with the worry that our group in fact had no discernible goal, I realize in reflecting on the things that I did this semester that it was truly a worthwhile experience.
