My experience with blogs has been short and thankfully sweet. I have been taking a course in online education and one of our assignments was to create a blog, comment on coursework as well as other students’ blogs. During the second week I managed to create a blog, bonblog, on eblogger. I was so excited about the name of my blog. Here it was MY own blog, Bonnie’s blog, or bonblog for short. When it popped up on my screen though, I didn’t like the design or the color. Worst of all, I couldn’t enter it to write. How disappointing. In order to hide my errors, I started  blogging on the course blog, eventhough that was not the assignment. Only after realizing that my grade was dipping did I attempt to set up another blog. This time I went with WordPress and got some help from the people at my school to make an interesting one. Now I had the uwsderblog at wordpress. com. It meant that I was a Manhattanite Upper West Sider. So cool. I found a great screen with a skyline and light paisley all around. I was psyched. Still, it was important to go over the blogs and comments on my fellow classmates in order to get the idea of blogging. My instructor, Jeffrey, was super helpful in explaining what a Wiki was and it made the whole blog thing come together. Now I plan to do this more regularly and share more info, both personal and work related. I hope everyone can have a positive experience with this form of technology.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Bonnie. Think about the possibilities for your learning, as well as the learning for your students and network . . .
Jeffrey
Comment by Jeffrey Keefer — March 10, 2009 @ 4:32 am
Hey, Bonnie! You make it look natural! Nice looking skyline, too!
So – you’ve been reading blogs, and writing blogs – what are you learning? Are blogs worthwhile, and if so, can you give an example of something you learned in a blog?
I guess I feel there are two or three types of blogs: 1, where the author is just trying to tell us his POV, which may or may not have value, depending on how much they thought about what they are saying, and how many outside points of view they took into account when they wrote it.
2, there are really ‘one way’ blogs – good, informative blogs, but the entire point was really to ‘get the word out’ to people, and let them think about it, or do something about it. In reality, there are many of these blogs, since they are actually ‘press releases to the masses’ – and any dialog is secondary. But they still may have vitally important information!
3. Then, occasionally, there is a true ‘dialog’ blog, much like the Jefferson / Madison letters, where TJ wrote at length about ideas, and Madison like a catipeller, worked over the idea inch by ince. He’d consider it, think about it, take it apart, put it back together one way, then another, commenting all the while. Then he’d send the letter to ask TJ ‘what did you mean by this, or this or about this?’
Meanwhile, by the time TJ ot the letter, he was like a butterfly, on to another flower.
Together, the two of them enriched each other, putting flights of fancy to the test, and making certain that those who could not see the sky for all their internal examinations, where given the chance to see it, and allowed (or forced) to consider it all the same!
I think those blogs are the rarest – but a lot of fun when you find them!
—Russ
Comment by russgifford — March 16, 2009 @ 12:57 am
Of the three types of blogs mentioned, I like the dialogue one. I like to have discussion going back and forth. That’s why I’m writing back to my comments.
Comment by uwsderblog — March 16, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
And those of us reading your blog appreciate the answers! You go, girl!
Comment by russgifford — March 19, 2009 @ 9:59 pm
Hi Bonnie,
Before this class, I have never created a blog. I found it most helpful to read through other people’s blogs includes yours. It allows me to learn about the different views that people have about the assigned reading.
As Russ mentioned, you make it look natural.
Comment by Vibha Mistry — March 17, 2009 @ 12:15 am