Reflection Blog: Being a Blogger Isn't So Bad

Being a Blogger Isn’t so Bad


Looking back through my blog posts and comments I see a drastic change in my engagement and interest in the blogging process. The first blog was short and I wasn’t very interested in the topic or blogging. As the blogs became more based on the readings I notice that I’m much more interested in writing about my feelings and reactions to the the book. In the beginning my comments were short and didn’t have much content to them but the later comments actually reflected what that person’s blog included and what I thought about it.
There are one or two blogs that are weak because I lacked interest in the topic of this posts but for the majority I usually wrote a detailed blog about my position on some issue. I think my strongest blogs were the ones that I was most interested in. These include the readings on Lost Mountain, the films, and the readings for Food Inc. I think I was so intrigued by these topics because it was a new area for me that I hadn’t knew a great deal about. The things we read were often disturbing and heart-breaking and I think that’s why I had such a strong reaction towards them when writing my blogs. These blogs were longer than many of my other posts because it is hard for me to stop when I’m trying to describe how I feel about something that really sucks and my anger shows in a lot of these posts. I don’t think I’m a negative person but when something really bothers me I really want to express that the best way I can.
I think it was easiest for me to blog when we weren’t given questions to answer or had to write something specific. I liked to “free” write and give my opinions on what had just read and my reflection of those readings. It was hard when we had to post our outlines because I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. It was really nice being able to look at other students’ blogs to see how they were getting started. Those were my longest and most annoying posts I think but having to do that really prepared me for our assignments.
Many of the comments on my blogs shared similar points of views and often just there because we were told to comment. I do think that commenting on other students’ blogs allowed us to review what we had written and given us something to compare our work with. I actually enjoyed receiving comments, it was kind of exciting to see what others thought of my blog. There wasn’t much negativity in any comments and I think that people’s comments were either constructive or gave another point of view on what I was writing about. It was an interesting tool used for learning but I think that it was helpful in giving us the opportunity to speak our minds and give our opinions on others’ opinions.
I also liked how we could read the other class’s blog posts because it expanded the range of perspectives we can see and it’s also interesting to read and comment on others’ blogs when you don’t even know who they are. That sort of anonymity brought a little more comfort knowing that there are so many blogs to read and compare with that no one will feel like they are being put on the spot with only a few students reading their posts.
When writing my blogs I imagined both the professor and my class peers reading over it and at first this made me a little uncomfortable. I got used to it and began to enjoy reflecting on our classwork in this way instead of quizzes. It was an easy and different way of learning and improving our writing skills. Knowing that others would be reading my posts made me a little more motivated to write something that really meant something instead of just writing it with no care. Even though I shouldn’t care what others think, it still went through my mind that I would be critiqued on my work by my peers. It wasn’t as painful of an experience as I had expected and I actually ended up enjoying that aspect of class.
Overall, the blogs were really helpful with increasing my understanding of the material. Getting a chance to review my classmates’ work was nice to have different ideas and perspectives on things that I never would have thought of otherwise. It’s interesting how different and out-spoken people can be when writing and I’m sort of one of those people who is sometimes better at writing out how I feel rather than saying it in person.