As we’ve discussed throughout this module, a small group is made stronger by the diverse backgrounds, skills, talents, and personalities of its members. One of the most important skills in group work is being able to identify your own strengths and articulate what you’d bring to a group project.

For this discussion, we’ll have an imaginary group project for the whole class: making a podcast together.

Wikipedia describes a podcast this way:

A podcast series usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event. Discussion and content within a podcast can range from carefully scripted to completely improvised. Podcasts combine elaborate and artistic sound production with thematic concerns ranging from scientific research to slice-of-life journalism. Many podcast series provide an associated website with links and show notes, guest biographies, transcripts, additional resources, commentary, and even a community forum dedicated to discussing the show’s content.

In a post of 100-150 words, identify one asset you’d bring to the group in regard to this project. Would you be good at writing text for the podcast? Creating graphics for the website? Conducting interviews? Mixing sound? Picking out music? Translating from another language? Managing the project so that everything is done on time? What would you need help with (i.e. which parts of this task would be most challenging for you?)

Next, reply to two of your classmates’ posts by writing 50-100 words about how you could work with them on the task they’ve taken on. How would your perspective on that task enhance the work they’re proposing? Do you have another angle on it? Do you have a different subset of skills?