English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

For our first week of creating our white paper we started with the basics. First we created a Google Group. This is an important step, especially for an online class since we do not have an actual class time to meet. Through our Google group and email, we exchanged information which included our email addresses, screen names, and phone numbers. We plan to use our Google group to its fullest capacity by adding blog posts on it so that any one of us can edit and add to it when we see fit or just posting announcements that will be sent out to all group members.

For our groups proposal we have decided to look at the use of heat pumps for use in a residential setting. There has been a lot of talk recently about energy usage concerns and this would be a chance to educate ourselves and others on the potential solutions, and maybe save a few dollars in energy bills along the way. Some options to be considered would be direct exchange, ground closed loop, pond loop, and standing column well system. Such options, while having a larger initial investment, could greatly reduce an individual’s heating and possibly cooling costs.

We have decided to do our white paper project on some of the more popular PDA/smart phone’s that are on the market today, including the IPhone, Blackberry Storm, and the G1. Our plan is to successfully inform the reader about each one of the phones characteristics, features, some pros and cons, and give them some general information about their operating systems. We will try to successfully inform the reader without sounding biased about any of the phones or manufacturers.

     According to Microsoft Corp., “collaboration is a key driver of business performance around the world.” A 2006 study conducted by Microsoft showed that collaboration has a significant impact on each of the gold standards of performance – profitability, profit growth, and sales growth, and that business performance is directly related to collaborative efforts. In response to the results of this study, we are proposing to outline the impact of collaboration on organizations of all sizes.

Up to this point, our activities have been mostly collaboratory.

We were all a part of the initial back-and-forth e-mail exchange. We introduced ourselves, started a brainstorm, started thinking about project roles and set up a meeting for Thursday night. During the meeting we chose our topic, discussed and chose project roles, assigned activities for the end of the week and the weekend, and set up our next meeting. Everyone was active in the meeting, too.

The tasks to accomplish in week 12 included contacting team members and opening lines of communication, choosing a topic, splitting up the work, writing a proposal, and providing support documents detailing the progress of the group and the individuals within it.

This week has been mostly about organizing our collaboration, choosing our topic, and writing the proposal.

Overall, the first week in Group 8 went well. The group consists of me (Dean Basso), Adam Persohn, Adam Waters, Lindsay Petrovi, and Michael Sheridan. Some things that we accomplished in week one were picking our topic, organizing our group, establishing a Google documents page, and setting group meetings. The topic was chosen to be oil dependence and renewable energy solutions. We were very skeptical on picking this subject because of the popularity of “green” topics, but we went with it anyways. We found the topic to be very interesting and very informative.

The purpose of our first group meeting was to pick a topic, choose roles, and get the ball rolling on developing our white paper. We were very productive with good communication and ideas flowing. Each group member played an active role in the discussion and everyone stepping up to complete specific tasks. If our group meetings continue to be this productive we should have no trouble successfully completing this project.

This activity report summarizes the progress that I have made this week in regard to the white paper project.