Collaborating during Unit #1 Project

Source: cincinnati

For our initial project in Collaboration in Online Communities, we were given the opportunity to work in groups in order to create a website and utilize online tools to develop a timeline of a certain piece of content that was recently spread collaboratively across various digital spaces.

My group created our project based on Harambe, the gorilla whose life was terminated by the Cincinnati Zoo in order to save a boy who had accessed the ape's exhibit. This particular topic was very interesting to me because when I initially heard about the incident over the summer, it was a shame, but I would have never thought it would be the kind of news to spread across so many social and news platforms and for such a long period of time.

Source: marketingland

One big contributor to the spread of this particular event was Reddit. Prior to this class, I had never accessed this network, but it is astonishing how fast one document or post can spread through here. Since people upvote to increase the popularity of the post, it creates a sort of escalating chain reaction, where more and more people see it at an increasing rate as more people upvote. This being such a controversial topic of discussion, (who was wrong, how should the zoo have responded, etc.) Reddit fastened the spread of Harambe. In Reddit, people are also allowed to discuss, speak out their opinions, and inclusively respond to other comments. This was only one of the various players that our group explored, but I think it was the most effective one, given the vast amount of responses and upvotes still increasing until this day.

Source: nymag

After most news channels, media, and networks like Reddit spread the news, the general public responded via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, protests, and trends such as "Dicks Out for Harambe." Although it raised serious environmental, animal protection, and legal concerns, this popular event also gave people the incentive to create humorous "memes" and jokes.

In terms of the tools we used, our team collectively agreed on using Photoshop to develop the timeline. We could have gone with Prezi or several other programs, but there is something very visually appealing about a simplistic vertical timeline. We were careful not too add too much information that it became overwhelming and were also sure to include images to make it visually appealing. With timelines, viewers are not necessarily trying to attain in-depth information about every event, but a chronological, general idea of a specific time period.

Another aspect of this group that I would like to bring up is the way in which we designated different roles, but also practiced collaboration. At the beginning of our group work, we got together and spoke out potential ideas. After we had picked one, we created a Google Document where we could all simultaneously and interactively contribute to the textual content of our site. At this time, we were each also given a specific section to focus our research on. Although we were each focusing on one idea, we were all allowed to go back on others' work, read it, and give personal inputs on ways to improve or modify certain sections.

Overall, I was very content with the way in which Myles, Klaudia, Noelle, Karen, and I worked as collaborative group. One particular thing from our class' readings that has stood out to me is that leaders are not necessary for a group to be successful. By having a uniform organization and roles, a group can flourish to a great extent. In this group, we all used our skills to make our Unit 1 Project the best that we could.