I have enjoyed reading and commenting on my colleagues blog posts far more then I have enjoyed writing them myself thus far. Blogging is not something I have done before and I was unsure at the start what type of writing I wanted to use, or how personal or professional the work was supposed to be. I think however, that after a series of postings and reviewing the writing of others in the class, I have come to appreciate how with the right types of prompts or topics, blogging can be useful in a class about technology in education. Getting practical hands on experience with it has provided me with much more information on how to set things up, how it feels to write about topics I find interesting, and how participating in discussions about posts outside of the online classroom works in reality.
The use of a larger scale educational blog could certainly be useful for certain types of learners in a wide variety of subject areas. I think the key is the type of learner, as those who tend to be more creative and extroverted would tend to like this type of assignment and may continue with it after the end date has come and gone. For myself, I do like working with my fellow students in discussion boards on guided topics and I feel that I have gained a lot from reading others thoughts when it comes to distance education and education in general. However, the open flow of thoughts is not something that comes naturally for me, and I think that is why my preference is for it to be done within the structured environment of the classroom discussion boards. I also must say that I like the format of the LEO discussion boards better as you can follow the comments on a variety of thoughts more clearly then in the blogger format that I have set up.
All in all, I think the blogging assignment has given me an incite into a social media format that I had not previously experienced, and that extremely valuable to me, especially within the context of studying distance education. That said, I personally much prefer to keep social media separate from the classroom environment which I think may be why I found the blogging assignment more difficult. I enjoy the discussion boards in classes because they are actually part of the class, but this feels separate and open in a way that I am not really used to. Given time I think I could definitely come to enjoy blogging, but for me it would probably need to be about a topic that was unrelated to my studies.
Travis, it's been wonderful following your blog for the past few weeks. I've enjoyed reading about your experiences, perspective, and reflections. Thanks also for sharing this reflection on your experience blogging. I have had a similar experience in that I was confused about the overall guidelines for the project and so found it difficult to identify potential topics. That being said, I found it very interesting and beneficial to read about our classmates' experiences.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I do not have a lot of experience blogging in my personal life. I don't know if I would choose this medium to express myself online. For me, it took a lot of energy to write posts that I thought were somewhat meaningful. With more practice, though, maybe it could become a more enjoyable experience.
One disadvantage for using student blogs in online classes is that there is no central data storage recording the students' use and visits. An instructor would have to sift through pages and pages of content, and manually collect student posts to grade them. If you'll notice, we have to report our data back to our instructors at the conclusion of this exercise so that it can be graded (and the content stored) in LEO. There is also no data captured centrally on students who visited blogs but maybe didn't comment. For these reasons, blogs may be difficult to add as a permanent fixture for a class (unless there is a social media tool that allows us to gather data on multiple blogs in one location).
You mentioned that if you were to take up blogging outside of class, that it would be a topic unrelated to your studies. What topics would you consider blogging about?
Thanks again for everything. Please let me know if you decide to continue blogging. I'd be interested in following your experiences as you continue your work at UMUC.