July 20, 2010
Reflections on this Blog Assignment
In our final blog post we were asked to reflect on this assignment in general so that is the purpose of this post.
This was my first experience with blogs as both a reader and as an author. For that reason alone I appreciated this assignment since it forced me to learn some new technology, and it wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be! :-0) Although my free time is pretty limited, on different occasions I browsed other blogs to see what kinds of information people post (this in addition to reading Aloma’s blog on a regular basis) and I was surprised at the creativity and variety. I’ve learned that blogs can be used for many purposes, educational and otherwise. I’ve also thought about how I can use blogs in the classes I teach, but so far I haven’t found an effective learning purpose for them.
This activity was also valuable because it forced me to reflect on different topics outside of the class conferences. Since we can’t be expected to cover every topic in the conferences I thought the blogs were a good opportunity to reflect on topics of personal interest that weren’t addressed in the course. I also enjoyed reading Aloma’s posts, my critical friend. She generally selected different topics and because her posts were thoughtful and insightful she always gave me something to think about. Plus an unexpected benefit is the online friendship that developed between us which I hope lasts as we continue our UMUC studies.
With the exception of Tomeatha who invited me to read his blog I didn’t have the opportunity to read my other classmate’s blogs. At times I was curious about what my peers wrote about on their blogs, but then again I know I wouldn’t have had time to keep up with all of them. Therefore, I think being assigned one critical friend was the best approach for this assignment. I also thought the option of keeping either a written blog or a video blog was a good way for the instructors to offer us some choice, thus highlighting the idea of autonomy, one of the themes of the course.
I know there is a blog for UMUC’s distance education program but I have yet to check it out. Now that I understand how blogs work and what they are about I plan to do so after my classes end this term and before the next term starts. Right now it’s more a matter of time constraints rather than a lack of interest as to why I haven’t checked it out.
In conclusion, I want to say thank you to Gila and Jim for introducing me to a new technology, and a BIG THANK YOU to Aloma for all your comments and positive feedback. I always looked forward to seeing what you had to say about my posts even if you disagreed. :-)
Thanks for reading!
Eva
Hi Eva,
ReplyDeleteI totally disagree with this post! Just kidding!
I agree that this assignemnt was fun and interesting. I enjoyed reading your posts because often you compared your studies to your teaching experiences. Not being a teacher myself, it was a lot of fun to read your reflections and since you have had such a wide range of experience with different institutions - it was very informative to see how you compared and contrasted what you have been learning. I also really appreciated the fact that you discussed your hesitance with technology and DE, and even UMUC. It was a refreshing perspective for me to read about, and you in turn taught me about the benefits for face-to-face teaching as well. I think we started out on opposite ends and converged in the middle because we agreed that blended learning was the best for students!
Your best post, in my opinion, was about Rosetta Stone. I had no idea how the system worked for teachers, and I found your comparison very intriguing. Even though this assignment was kind of time consuming, I enjoyed writing my blog as well. I know we are going to be busy for the next couple weeks finishing up classes, but I too am going to check out the OMDE program resources, including the blog.
Thanks for being such a great critical friend!! And of course, we will stay in touch because of our newfound friendship!
-Aloma