Blog #9 Group Output.

One consistent element found in every presentation was the use of group work. While in part this may have been the result of time constraints, it also reveals how groups create content; often a different result than if everyone was left to their own devices.

I think by far my favorite group project (other than watching non-gamers hold a controller) was the short story creation. It seemed by far to be the most productive, in terms of output, and perhaps the most engaging; the restrictions were few, and all three groups ended up organizing in different but equally effective ways.

One of the strengths of this approach is that the writing required is divided across the group, cutting individual responsibility for producing output down considerably. I think this helped lower pressure by making expected output more manageable.

Another strength is pooling creativity. I believe the other two groups went with a round robin approach to adding new content (similar to the one line added each rotation from the Hip Hop presentation), but our group worked as a collective, adding ideas together as a single person worked it into the narrative. We chose to type our story, which I think helped in the way of allowing minor editing. Writing it out might encourage a constant flow, but having the ability to modify the story if we want to go back was a plus for our story.

Of all the group projects we’ve done so far in class, it’s this short story format that I think I’d like to apply to an actual classroom. I think it would only benefit from having more time than we had in class (perhaps a week long assignment in a classroom setting), to broaden the scope of the story, and allow for going back to edit for consistency and typographic issues. The combination of group work and open-ended prompt keeps individual output requirements low while allowing for a huge variety in potential short stories.