COM10003 Learning and Communicating Online
Assessment 3: Reflective essay

This essay will discuss how my use of online information has grown from being merely a consumer, to now being able to critically evaluate online sources for credibility and suitability for use in academic work. My role in producing an online informational resource has been enhanced by both the readings, and the experience gained in the collaborative process involved in working as a team. This is my first experience at online collaboration and I will examine the challenges encountered using this medium of communication, how I dealt with them, the lessons learned, and what I would do differently during future collaborative work.
Before this course, my experience
I felt compelled to do this while watching YouTube videos, and reading comments from people who considered that using the drug ‘ice’ was a controllable experience, reasoning that they have used the drug for years without experiencing addiction. Their testimonies reminded me of conversations I have had with truck drivers that have an obvious drug addiction, proved by spending hundreds of dollars on amphetamines each week, but who are constantly talking about how they have everything under control. Whether or not I did the right thing in determining not to introduce this somewhat more positive side of the drug into the presentation, it would seem remiss not to mention how this aspect of personal experience can inform and influence our decision on the credibility of a website, and should not be readily discounted. In hindsight this is one aspect that it would have been interesting to have collaborated on and gotten a collective perspective and opinion from the group.
Online collaboration has been an interesting experience, and although having been involved in many collaborative projects before, and enjoying the interaction it brings with like minded and often financially linked individuals, the online experience with near strangers brings new challenges. The