How it helped me learn:
Blogging helped me to learn in three ways. First, blogging
really forced me to stay on top of what was going on in class. It’s easy to let a class slide at certain
times of the year when other classes get hectic, but having to blog twice a
week meant that you couldn’t neglect this class for too long. Secondly, when I would start off writing a question
post, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of what the answer was. Then, about
half way through trying to phrase the question, the answer would end up clicking
in my head. Finally, having to
articulate really complex concepts in ways that other people would understand really
reinforced what I had learned.
Promoting class interaction:
In terms of promoting class interaction, I felt that
blogging was at its best when people engaged in the same conversations via
trackbacks and linking to other blog posts. It is always exciting to see how other people agree
with or challenge the thinking behind your posts. Furthermore, many people asked questions that
a lot of other people had, but never blogged about. Therefore, blogging was valuable in the sense
that it really promoted knowledge sharing in real time. It was also great the Professor Gibson always
replied back so quickly.
Suggestions:
I thought that the two posts of week were a fair
request. My only suggestion would be to
add another section to the blog where people could write about whatever was of
interest to them outside of Information Business for maybe 5 of the total
required semester posts. I think that we
might learn some interesting things about people in the class this way, such as
their hobbies, interests, and activities.
Course Website:
In terms of the course website, it was set up in a way that
made me feel that I was always up to date on what was going on in class. The links to the articles and handouts for the
day made everything very intuitively organized. I definitely can’t say this for
my other classes, where it would take a ridiculous amount of time to find lecture
slides and project requirements that were intermingled in CourseTools and
CTools.
FeedReaders:
I really, really, really liked Sage. It made keeping up with other blogs in the
class so much more bearable. Before Sage, reading everyone’s individual pages and
trying to decipher between new and old content was very cumbersome. Sage was
a blessing.
Future Application:
For future application, I think that blogging would be
really effective in an English or Art History class where you have to give
interpretations of really abstract ideas. Blogs would give students a window
into seeing the different perspectives of how their peers viewed a poem or painting.
I also ran across this website, which I found to be kind of interesting as related to blogging in an academic setting.
Comments