I learned that I had to organize my thoughts and be more concise. Otherwise, maintaining a blog could be a great deal of work. I often found myself taking notes on the readings and videos on word. Eventually, I would re-write what I had written (perhaps condense it) before posting.
I found what others had written to be very interesting. Most of the time we had a similar thought about what we had read or viewed or attempted; however, sometimes I was surprised by the difference of opinions. For instance, my classmate, Jeff, wrote that he found using Engrade (the on line grading system for teachers) difficult and didn’t seem to like it. I, on the other hand found it easy and I like many of the features that it had to offer. Sheldon loved Engrade. By the way, Sheldon has the best blogs. His titles are catchy and his blogs are well written. Michelle also liked using Engrade.
I know that my group, “On To The Future,” worked for hours on the newsletter to the parents. Therefore, I took it upon myself to look at and comment on the other groups’ newsletters as well. I looked at their slide show of screen shots, digital movies if I could. I wasn’t able to see Sheldon’s, so I let him know during a group meeting. Michelle, some how, posted sheldon’s digital movie to her blog and our group watched it from there.
I also like Michelle’s blog’s. They are often short and to the point. I love the way she attaches her slides, videos, and more to her blog pages. She viewed one of my digital stories on my blog and made a helpful comment. I especially liked to look at others blogs right after an assignment was due and I knew we had to post it to our blogs. I found the variety to be quite interesting. I love Jeff’s history video. I can definitely see him showing that to his class.
I do prefer to blog over twitter. I was a little frustrated with the fact that twitter only allows a person a certain amount of characters per twit. I like the fact that a blog can be as long or as short as you would like it to be. I like the fact that we can add links, photos, slide shows, videos, collages and more to our blog page to make it interesting. When I am through with this blog, I plan on creating a Christmas slide show on Smile Box and posting onto my blog. I hope I don’t have any problems. I have done it before. Sometimes I would have a problem getting it on and I would call Michelle and she would talk me through it again.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING EXCHANGE - BLOG EXPERIENCE
Even though our semester is over, I still plan on checking in on my classmates and especially my group members through their blogs and continue to comment to them either through e-mail or right on the blog. I think Sheldon had the catchiest titles. I think my titles were catchy. They may not have all been exciting. However, I definitely let the reader know what the blog was going to be about.
I found that I learned a little more about the class by reading the blogs of my classmates. If you think about it, we had at LEAST two blogs going on at the same time. Through the International Writing Exchange (IWE), I found out that one of my classmates was born in South America (I think it was Victoria). She posted a beautiful collage of family photos. I also communicated with Sheldon and Michelle through the International Writing Exchange. While a discussion was on-going about family (which I believe I had originated that topic), I got to see a beautiful family photo that belonged to Sheldon. I had posted a video clip from YouTube, which featured my father the summer before he passed away. Sheldon had commented on my movie, which I believe inspired, him to post his family photo. I sent a reply comment back to him. Each time someone made a comment on the IWE, it would show up in personal my e-mail log. For a while I was responding to everyone via e-mail until Dr. Smirnova explained to me that I had to click on a link towards the bottom of the e-mail to respond on the IWE site. I believe I also originated the topic of music and food as well. It was interesting to see how far those subjects were carried.
Well, it is finally time to wind things down. I do have a few more things to post, which I will do probably later today. So I will say, goodbye for now.
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