Well, after reflecting on the blogging experience for the year as Bud asked (had my inspiration now so didn't want to wait till Thursday), I have lots to say about it. All the pluses first: Bottom line, I thought it an awesome concept and not only did the blogosphere turn out to be a huge asset for the class, but for me personally it got me to start my own private blog eventually at blogger.com which I enjoy lots now -and so do my friends :) - and also to try Firefox at the urging of many bloggers and their good experiences (and I'm THRILLED with it now, GO MOZILLA!), and of course most importantly it is the most helpful tool I've ever had in a class to keep up with everything that is going on, especially if you have to miss class which is the case for many people with interviews and traveling this term. Also lots of information that was exchanged be it on a class problem or a current issue in the world relevant to class, I thought was all very useful. Basically I found blogging to be a very positive experience and I think it should definitely remain a part of the class in the future. BUT, there was ONE major drawback in my opinion and my experience: the relationship between blogging and the class grade. My experience was that while I like blogging about many things that were relevant to the class, I'm just not the kind of person who will blog about a question about class material and such...it's just not my style and never has been so it was tough for me because it limited what I could blog about, because while I meant in my heart to post questions, question would never come to me to ask, not because I knew or understood everything but just because that's just never been the way I've come to understand things in school since I was little, I sort of like figuring as much as my own out as I can. Maybe I was just one of little faith or maybe it's that blogging was new for me, but that's my feeling. There is only so much you can blog about other things that are relevant to class before you feel it's cheapened for you because you're forcing it...I mean some blogs I forced, and some blogs I would have posted whether it meant anything for participation or not. However, I do feel that asking questions about class material you don't understnad IS the style of many others, as we obviously saw throughout the year...so I don't think removing the high percentage of grade up to blogging would severely hinder blogging, that is, many people would blog anyway and the blogosphere would still work. That is just one man's opinion, I have no idea of whether anyone agrees. In fact, I think if your grade were less dependent on blogging the blogosphere might actually become MORE dynamic, with less filler from people "forcing it" and even more useful stuff and responses to others. So, again, my experience was the blogosphere and blogging in class was very positive and I found it inmensely useful and wish other classes had a blogosphere, and the only issue I had was not with the blogosphere itself but with the grade that was attached to it. Hope that made some sense because I might have rambled a little.
Jason
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