That was a good project educationally. Yet, socially I am skeptical of its merit. I have yet to be in a situation where I have to teach a class of people who are commanded to look at me as I stand in front of the blackboard. If you are a corporate trainer or other educator, this is good training. Yet outside of that, there is no applicability of this sort of school exercise to the real world. It is good that the students interact with each other, I guess, but even that is in such a controlled manner, ie, 10 year olds interact only with 10 year olds. They are in teh groups that the teacher assigns, ie, they can't recruit an optimal team (that would be unfair). They can't just work with their friends (unfair). This sort of exercise, then, has little relation to the real world, at least to the real world where people to choose with whom they want to associate and do business, ie, not determined by The Teacher.
My only point being this: school is not the place to become socialized....unless the meaning of "socialized" is closely tied to "socialist". Then what happens in school seems to me to be headed in the right direction. I, however, don't want that at all and wish I had never partaken of it, at all.
Ah, but they did socialize. They picked their own team for the project. They had to discuss what they wanted to do, and then how to do it. All that involves socialization. They then had to to divide the duties and then discuss the results, and put the project together. Again they are socializing. Granted, it is not free form, but they are clear utilizing Social skills—communications, interpersonal relationships, negotiating, dialogue, banter, even debate.