Blogs

Throughout the semester, we were given the task of updating our blogs and posting weekly.  This seemed to be no problem to me at first, but as the semester went on and my classes got much tougher, I realized how difficult it was to keep up.  I think there is a lot to like about the blogging process, but there is also a lot that I did not like.  The biggest problem I had was just motivating myself to post weekly.  There were times when I got wrapped up in our group assignment and neglected to blog.  I realize now that this was a big mistake, because I could very easily have blogged about the process of working on these group projects.  Most of my early posts were responses to the reading assignments or follow ups on the group assignments.  However, I could have done much more to blog about the actual process.  Another aspect about blogging that I did not really care for was that I felt that this was more of an academic blog than a personal blog.  I understand that this blog was created as an assignment for a class, but I would really love to express some of my opinions without the fear that they will be graded for grammar and content.  I feel like expressing myself is much easier when I don’t worry so much about my audience.  I feel that I have improved in this regard over the semester because I started to post actual thoughts and feelings about the projects and assignments.  This is the way I see a blog being most useful.  It should be almost like an online journal where you share your thoughts but do not worry about who reads them.  I felt that the assignment somewhat limited that function of blogs.

There was a lot I enjoyed about blogging as well.  I really liked being able to express thoughts on various issues, topics, readings, or assignments.  It was interesting to me that I was able to somewhat freely express myself.  It was also a great way for personal self-expression, something that I enjoyed.  I generally do not enjoy writing, but when I found a topic that I had many opinions about, I was able to easily write a blog post that explained how I felt.  I think overall, there is a lot to be liked about writing a blog, but at the same time there is a lot that can be improved. 

If I was given this assignment in the future, I would prefer more structure in terms of deadlines for weekly posts, just because I work best when I know there is a hard deadline.  I would also like to believe that this blog is just a way to express myself and will not be graded very harshly.  The pressure of being graded makes it a lot harder to truly express yourself.   This has been a good experience for me blogging this semester, and it may be something that I continue in the future.