I actually really enjoyed keeping an online journal. There are definitely both pros and cons, but I much preferred this to a handwritten journal for many reasons. First and foremost, I loved being able to read my peers’ blogs. This adds another layer to the class and allows us to share ideas that we wouldn’t otherwise share. Some people speak more than others in class discussions, but in easily-read blogs, you can see everyone’s opinions and insights where this otherwise wouldn’t be the case. Also, I find keeping an online journal much easier. While it is true that there is not the convenience of being able to carry a notebook around and just jot stuff down, I rarely have a situation where I am not near a computer. Also, I tend to just take a note on my phone or scribble a thought down on a piece of paper, and then I develop it into something of substance later. It is nice being able to really work on posts over time and have the ability to add things and restructure the posts, which is a level of editing that is quite difficult on paper. Also, I am a very slow writer but a quick typer, which is nice for me. It is painful for me to handwrite a long post, but it is really easy to crank out a page in Word, allowing me to write much more; it seems like less of a chore. In addition to this, I really like the organization of Blogger, allowing me to easily find posts I have written previously instead of having to flip through pages and pages in my notebook. In terms of critiques of the online journals, I don’t have any major ones. I really like our current system. I would like more participation in the form of everyone commenting on each other’s blogs. Why use this system and not take advantage of it? There is an ability to spawn interesting discussions through commenting, and it would be great to see everyone use this. I really don’t think there is anything wrong with how the assignment of online reading journals has been set up though. One minor thing though is that I used to like showing off my random thoughts in class in my journal, which isn’t seen on the online version. However, I believe the fact that the online journal encourages one to develop, expand, and polish posts is a very good trade off.
1 comment:
I agree that it would be great to see more frequent commenting among the class. I'm getting the impression from many of these reflective posts that people have been reading each other's stuff, but not necessarily commenting every time (people I've never or rarely seen commenting are saying that they enjoyed reading their classmates' work). It's a fine line--I don't want to require and keep track of comments for credit, because the quality of the comments declines when it becomes a required formality. Maybe I should explicitly give extra credit at the end of each quarter for frequent and meaningful commentaries.
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