Collaborative Writing

The business chosen for our collaborative group project was "Becky's Burgers" located in Magee, MS. which it was chosen by the one and only group member within my group. My group started with four members at which 2 of them drop out of the class, causing an enormous confusion,  leaving only two of us working together in this project, and also leaving us with a lot of ground to be cover in very little time.
Working together as a group, I thought was going to be very difficult in my part due to distance, time zones, and over all schedule. The communication with my group partner was actually very easy via e-mail, cell phone and text. We stay in touch step by step throughout the entire project. Since I live in Seattle, Washington, my group partner took charge of doing the research, interviews and various leg work necessary to complete the project. Due to the distance limitations on my part, I would review the information gather by my group partner and provide my input on the project, working my part within the group.
The group project was a good assignment, it helps us, the student to understand the struggles of smalls businesses within our communities and seek out solution to various problems that many businesses run into.
In conclusion, I was very disappointed to know that many groups were having problems, especially in my position where I live thousands of miles away and a time difference that sometimes it can hurt a deadline in a group project. In the other hand many people don't like to work in group projects, due to many circumstances.
In my opinion, majority of the students that take online classes do it, because of how time consuming it can be to attend a class on campus, versus at an online class where the student is in the comfort of their home, able to work at their own time and eliminating the drive time giving the student extra time to be spend towards class work. This group project probably place many students in a hard place due to how time consuming it can be, due to the situation if a group member don't do their part or yet, just plain don't show up to a group meeting. Many students don't have the normal 9-5 Monday to Friday work schedule, some people may work at night leaving them the daytime to do their school work, others have rotating shift work and in my case where the regular work hours are from 5am to 5pm 5 days a week, also living in a Pacific time zone don't allow to meet many deadlines, it sure don't help in the situation.
With all this struggles that I had to juggle, I was not one of the students having problems with the group project, but I believe schedules should be taking into consideration when it comes to assigning the student with a group project, so they can effectively coordinate with others.