Blog Reflection
I considered doing a podcast to share my thoughts on my blogging experience in this course, but then I thought I would somehow be sending the wrong message by using a different medium.
Anyways, in general, I think the blogging in this class was one of the smoothest experiences I have had to date when it comes to educational blogging. Blogger made it very easy for all of us to post our thoughts and view them.
However, despite the ease of use, I still have some concerns that we can consider for future educational blogging experiences:
1) It took me a while to get into the mindset of this being a blog dealing with academic discussions. Because blogger is mainly used for personal reflection and thought, it was tough for me to view it as different. It may have been especially difficult for me because I read another blog that uses the exact same background as this one, but he talks about pop culture and other mundane items.
2) I agree with Dr. Anson's thoughts on trying to have the blog be more dialogic. It felt as if we were posting for the sake of posting without putting a whole lot of thought into what everyone else had to say. Certainly by communicating with each other on the blog, we have the ability to enrich each other's thoughts.
3) Along those lines, the way the text is structured, it began to seem as if it was one voice speaking. There was not enough structure to give the reader a good sense of who was talking and on what. Part of this problem is that blogs are typically authored by one person. Each new post is only going to be made by that author. Perhaps a bulletin board would be better for a classroom situation. Not only would it encourage more dialogue between students, but it would also do a better job of classifying which posts apply to which week's topic.
4) One thing to consider if you're thinking about using a blog in a classroom with undergraduates is the idea of when they'll read new posts. I know many of us used RSS readers to alert us when new posts were made, but I wonder how many undergraduates use them. And if they're not using them, they would have to actually visit the site on a regular basis to see if any new posts have been made. I have my doubts about whether students would be that proactive.
5) Finally, I'd like to talk about the response aspect of blogs. Dr. Anson mentioned in his vidcast about how much easier it was to take notes from the blog than an pod/vidcast in order to provide appropriate response. I'm not sure about the ease of notetaking, but what I am finding is that I'm more eager or inspired to respond to the podcasts than I was to the blog posts. There something about hearing the author's tone and inflection that makes me want to respond with the same passion. I felt that when I read the blog posts, I read them to get the nuts and bolts of their thoughts. Right now, I'm seeing podcasts as being more motivating to produce dialogue than the blog was.
--Adam
Anyways, in general, I think the blogging in this class was one of the smoothest experiences I have had to date when it comes to educational blogging. Blogger made it very easy for all of us to post our thoughts and view them.
However, despite the ease of use, I still have some concerns that we can consider for future educational blogging experiences:
1) It took me a while to get into the mindset of this being a blog dealing with academic discussions. Because blogger is mainly used for personal reflection and thought, it was tough for me to view it as different. It may have been especially difficult for me because I read another blog that uses the exact same background as this one, but he talks about pop culture and other mundane items.
2) I agree with Dr. Anson's thoughts on trying to have the blog be more dialogic. It felt as if we were posting for the sake of posting without putting a whole lot of thought into what everyone else had to say. Certainly by communicating with each other on the blog, we have the ability to enrich each other's thoughts.
3) Along those lines, the way the text is structured, it began to seem as if it was one voice speaking. There was not enough structure to give the reader a good sense of who was talking and on what. Part of this problem is that blogs are typically authored by one person. Each new post is only going to be made by that author. Perhaps a bulletin board would be better for a classroom situation. Not only would it encourage more dialogue between students, but it would also do a better job of classifying which posts apply to which week's topic.
4) One thing to consider if you're thinking about using a blog in a classroom with undergraduates is the idea of when they'll read new posts. I know many of us used RSS readers to alert us when new posts were made, but I wonder how many undergraduates use them. And if they're not using them, they would have to actually visit the site on a regular basis to see if any new posts have been made. I have my doubts about whether students would be that proactive.
5) Finally, I'd like to talk about the response aspect of blogs. Dr. Anson mentioned in his vidcast about how much easier it was to take notes from the blog than an pod/vidcast in order to provide appropriate response. I'm not sure about the ease of notetaking, but what I am finding is that I'm more eager or inspired to respond to the podcasts than I was to the blog posts. There something about hearing the author's tone and inflection that makes me want to respond with the same passion. I felt that when I read the blog posts, I read them to get the nuts and bolts of their thoughts. Right now, I'm seeing podcasts as being more motivating to produce dialogue than the blog was.
--Adam
posted by CRDM - 2nd Year at 12:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home