Team Roles Summary

As you work in teams, each person participates for group success.  How can you all succeed?  Remember, each project's evaluation considers each team member's contribution to the wiki project.  How can you be sure you have participated? To help each of you succeed with appropriate time, content, and process participation, each of you simply choose a role from those below. Of course, feel free to contribute to the wiki in any of the other roles outlined to help your project improve. On your team page, list who completed which role in your plan. These roles will help us be leaders and help us all succeed -- and that is the most important goal of all: Class Success!

Discussion Director/Task Tracker, Link Leader, Flow Foreman, Spelling Superintendent, Style Supervisor

The Discussion Director/Task Tracker

"Good group projects start and end with conversations.  After all, how can you really work together if you don't take the time to talk to one another about what you're producing?" How do you ensure your conversations are a part of the work you do on this wiki? Get a discussion director! Challenge the information presented in the new ideas through discussion, so the team can legitimize or debunk new information. What do you do?

1. Keep a discussion board on your group's page. 
2. Ask constant questions about what your group is producing (valid, reliable, accurate, interesting), how the project is progressing, what needs to be done or re-done, etc.
3. Be a good evaluator: compare your page with the pages produced by other groups to discover ways that your work could be improved (and perhaps help another team).
4. Be a good planner: help your group set due dates, reflect and review the progress of your project, and complete required tasks.

The Link Leader/Project Protector

A high quality wiki provides "a heaping cheese-load worth of links to outside sources."  Links allow readers to explore and validate your topic on their own. Look at connections between your project wiki content and provide links to research and information that discusses that content. Check that the facts of your project in the wiki are correct. (You're helping the Discussion Director/Task Tracker with accuracy).

The link leader of your group is responsible for all of the links included in your document.  What do you do?

1. Find logical places to include links in your group's work.   
2. Use the checklist found here  evalmidd.pdf  to evaluate the websites included in your group's document.
3. Check each source that you link to for bias and/or accuracy---and be willing to replace any questionable links included in your group's work.
4. Stop spammers or editing that detracts from your created content, and check for plagiarism as a protection of the integrity of the wiki. You are "The Protector." Notify your teacher of any spamming or inappropriate editing/commenting.
5. Cite and link to the source for your ideas and graphics. Use footnotes.^{[1] [2]}

The Flow Foreman

Has a piece of text ever totally confused you?  Have you ever had to read something over and over to understand what the author was trying to say?  Frustrating, wasn't it?!

The flow foreman of your group is responsible for reviewing your work for clarity and content.  Make revisions so your reader is not frustrated. What do you do?

1. Look for new ideas that relate to the topic and include those ideas into the wiki. (innovator)
2. Look for sentences that don't make sense.
3. Look for places that make readers go, "Huh?"
4. Look for missing words and phrases.
5. Look for missing explanations and details.
6. Look for rambling on and on and on.
7. Look for unnecessary repetition.
8. Read---and reread---and reread again and again and again---after all, wikis change every day. 
9. Revise the "readability" of your group's document.

The Spelling Superintendent

"Nothing ruins a good piece more than 8,000 spelling errors."  It's simple imposable 2 b konvinsing when u kan't spel enyting korektlee!  "Readers will stop thinking you're an expert after two----or maybe three----spelling errors."  The spelling superintendent must persist, though----every time your page is revised becomes another chance for a misspelled word!  What do you do?

1. The spelling superintendent checks the spelling of every single word that is added to your group's document.
2. When a change is made, the spelling superintendent checks the spelling of every single word that is added to your group's document.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 until the final publication, and check again!

The Style Supervisor (or Eye Candy Chairperson)

How much time do you spend at a website with no graphics or interactive features?  How much time do you spend on a website without paragraph breaks or proper spacing between words?  What about on a website that just plain didn't look interesting? None!  Think about all those pages you left within two clicks. The style supervisor seriously ensures that doesn't happen to you!  What do you do?

1. Find images and graphics that support your ideas: the arguments your group adds; the mind movie you've described; the story you've all set.
2. Cite sources for you images and graphics.
3. Organize a professional and interesting layout. (KISS: Keep it simple, succinct.)
4. Remember who the audience for your page is----and choose appropriate graphics, images and layout for that specific group of people!  Pages that appeal to twelve year olds probably won't appeal to anyone over 22!

Think Ahead: Team Tactics

Remember these tips:

1. Regardless of the role that you are assigned, your wiki page is a group project.
2. If you can help a partner complete their task too, you're really just helping yourself! 
3. If you can help another team complete their task too, you're really just helping the whole class.
4. When you come across resources or ideas that might improve your final product, be sure to use the discussion board of your group's page to share ideas.
5. If you find excellent resources, add your idea in the form of a question/answer to the Problems Page (Wiki Problem Page for wiki solutions or Project Problem Page for project ideas/solutions).

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Adapted from the work of Bill Ferriter, who teaches 6th grade language arts in North Carolina and was named Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006.