Pheww! It's over! What a journey this blogging has been! I was initially excited about the prospect of blogging and the various benefits it would bring i.e. causing me to reflect on the learning outcomes each week, collaborating online with our peers, getting hands on with technology BUT when I sat down at my computer I really struggled to (a) articulate my thoughts and (b) to feel comfortable posting my thoughts for the world to see! I had a true love/hate relationship with blogging. Loved it when I could actually sit down and write it and when I discovered something new and useful and interesting BUT also hated it with a passion when I felt overwhelmed with the abundance of information, widgets, gadgets and links out there. HOWEVER (and that's a bit however for a reason) when push came to shove (i.e. deadline looming) I really began to enjoy posting my comments online and somehow 'forgot' about my prior concerns once my mind set had changed to 'just do it' (thanks Nike). I have found the experience of blogging has caused me to reflect so much more (and in greater depth) than I normally would have. I especially found useful the focus questions each week as they made me address each area we covered, not just the ones I could write about easily. I feel like a whole new world of technology has been opened up to me - I was probably using 2% of my smart phone/laptop/Internets capacity before - you know just searching for journals, checking FB, newspaper, emails, downloading music BUT now I have found other ways to spend my evenings....creating voki's, storybirds, glogster posters and the list goes on! Oh and I love Diigo - it solved my issue of not liking to read articles online but then not wanting to print 2 trees worth of research!
After looking over my blogs, I can see the tone of my public voice, changed from week to week. Sometimes I feel I am being very colloquial and using informal language and other times I feel I am in 'presentation/assignment' mode and drawing upon my academic language lexicon... Just as my moods change daily, so too does my blogger mood and I think this creates a nice record of reflection, emotion and ideas.
I spent a lot of time looking at YouTube clips on how to embed different gadgets and widgets and looking at sample blogs from practicing teachers from all over the world. I initially found it very difficult to embed and link etc but got the hang of it after a few weeks. Of course, I have only scratched the surface of the potential of a blog so it will be a work in progress. Which means...yes that's right...I'm going to continue blogging! Who would have thought! I went from finding blogging as an invasion of my thoughts and ideas to enjoying the reflective and interactive nature of blogging.
So, in conclusion, my love/hate relationship with blogging has become a more stable 'like' relationship and I will be blogging in the future - both with my students in the classroom and as a teacher!
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