Blogging

This blogging business is quite interesting! Having informally surveyed my colleagues at work about blogging, I find that only the under 30’s seem to have experience or interest. So I asked my teenager and her friends, and they all have blogs. What do you write in them, I enquired? You know… stuff… was the most common answer, I think that meant personal stuff! One girl said she kept her diary or journal blog, another one said she had to do a blog for English at school.


I have read a few, non study blogs, and those of my class mates and one of the most noticeable features is their use of informal language. When reading those blogs I feel as if I am having a personal conversation, and that the person is sharing something of themselves with me. I think this may be one of the reasons I have found it so difficult to do this part of my course assessment. It feels very personal.

From reading my class mates blog comments, they obviously feel the same. Most of the students have shared their journeys through e-learning, and what they personally hope to gain from the course, the things that have thrilled them and frustrated them. Sarah shared with us that her cat had been run over, (that’s really sad!) which is just the sort of thing that would have been talked about in a real class. Not that this isn’t a real class, a physical class – is what I mean.

Another personal issue commented on by other students, is the shortage of hours in the day, to do the things intended. It is gratifying to hear this trick of time happens to others and not just me. I am sure a few years ago, an hour was a whole lot longer, and I could do more with it. (Must be something to do with the credit crunch and inflation!) See, this is what I mean, things are getting personal – where has the definition I was planning to write gone – you know the one about weblogs or blogs as they are now known, allow instant publishing on the internet. Blogs are a social technology, and can allow ordinary people to be media creators and not just consumers. According to Ferdig and Trammell (2004), blogs encourage students to take ownership of their learning and publish authentic artifacts containing their thoughts and understanding.

One of the main features of the blog is the ability of the audience to comment and participate. I don’t see a lot of evidence of this with our class. I have noticed that some students have become followers but not many, and I haven’t seen any comments. This may just be because everyone is so busy, or it may be that I am not looking in the right place?? If, like me the other students are working full time, studying part time, and I fitting family obligations in somehow too, I can understand not getting to comment on other students’ blogs, it seems nearly impossible for me.

I suppose my expectation of having a ‘Julie and Julia’ like experience (the Meryl Streep film) was unrealistic, but that was the closest I had come to any real blogging before this exercise. It all seemed to come naturally to her. The only similarity between us seems to have been that I too had a ‘melt down’ similar to the one she had over … something, when my computer ate my first assignment.

References

Ferdig, R., & Trammell, K. (2004). Content Delivery in the'Blogosphere'. THE Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), 31(7), 12-16.