Over the past seven weeks, we have explored
numerous information communication technologies (ICTs) that can be used in
contemporary classrooms and reflected on five ICTs specifically in a weekly
blog posting. In this week’s task, I
will reflect on my first ever experience with blogging, as well as, the
benefits and drawbacks of using blogging.
I endeavored to challenge myself in this
course by exploring and using different ICTs I wouldn’t normally have given a
chance. I have learnt a great deal about online learning communities. I must
admit that this whole blogging experience terrified me because when I was
younger I was subjected to online bullying. Unfortunately, I did struggle to
comment on others postings for this reason (and also partly because I was so
focused on what I was posting). This is something I know, with practice, I can
rectify as this course has put me a step ahead in the right direction. I know
in the years to come of studying, I will be using online collaborative learning
tools in which I honestly do look forward to.
I kept a list of a few blogs I enjoyed
reading including CQUBlogger132, brettcolemanintroduction, and entirelyunique.
I tried to find posts about other ICTs I didn’t get the chance to explore to
build on my knowledge. All the posts I read I found to be very informative and
well written. I enjoyed reading others perspectives on the topic as these
forced me to reflect upon my perspectives. It wasn’t until week 7 that I posted
my first comment on the blog creativedigitech in response to the authors
reflection on their experience with these tasks. Here is a link to the post: creativedigitech
It was scary to think that anyone could
access and read my blog. I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt compelled
to analyise my posts over and over again to ensure it made sense so I didn’t
make a fool out of myself. I suppose this is somewhat a good thing because by
doing this I created new pedagogies. I received a comment on the 22nd
March 2015 from “Johnny Lost, wait. What?” on my second post addressing the
nature of digital pedagogy and another comment posted by benmccullough on the
30th March 2015 on my post reflecting on using blogs. Both of these
comments helped me in realising how good blogging could actually be for
students.
From my very limited experience with
blogging, I have found both benefits and drawbacks. Benefits of blogging
include better understanding of the topic, as you are able to draw on numerous
perspectives to form a broader understanding, establish higher order thinking supported
through combination, analysis and evaluation of multiple perspectives, enables
creative thinking, and learning becomes self-regulated learning through
blogging. On the other hand, the only drawbacks I found in blogging are minimal
participation in discussions or even just comments on blog posts (like myself
in this course) and minimal effort put into posts and comments. These can be
regulated in some way or another however.
This blogging experience has really
emphasised how useful it can be for students. Although I didn’t participate as
much as I should have, I have a better understanding of how blogging should
work and what benefits come out of it. I will make a conscious effort in the
future to incorporate blogging in my classroom.
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