Concept Mapping-In our Group

I am in a group of 4 (Barb, Steve, Michel and myself).

I was a late entry into the group, and the others had already begun the work of deciding upon a topic. Global Warming was the winner..and a good pick too as the topic is current and thus, there is a lot of great material on the web dealing with this topic.

Our group went through a bit of an evolution trying to put together this concept map. First, a map was drawn up that, to me (not very knowledgeable about global warming) looked too vast. We discussed the fact that all need not be in the final project, but even so, we went back to the drawing board. The second version ended up confining us too much. We had a much more difficult time trying to find resources that matched the new model. That being said, we did find a lot of resources. I submitted links to a few lessons, but moreover samples of work worth emulating. I think some of us became overwhelmed by the multitude of "stuff" without any clear focus. I tried to compose a type of scenario or real-world problem to anchor our model in. The idea in total didn't fly, but the main ideas of Causes, Effects and Education lingered. Michel drafted a new model (bless his heart-he's good!) and the main themes I was looking for were melded together to get our final result.

I'm not going to pretend it wasn't difficult. It's funny how even as an adult, I can still take things personally. And even though I know that the typed word can take on any tone, I still apply to it what I feel or hear in my head. It's hardly right. In the end, I called Barbara, which helped me a lot. I tried to make the map more linear, so that I could better follow it from my perspective as a learner, but I came to realize that it sort of defeated the purpose of the map in the first place. I am happy with the end result. There are more lessons to be learned in a distance ed class than just those of the curricular content, to be sure. I certainly dont' want "does not play well with others" on my report card!! Give and take...back to work!!