Writing blogs for this class is very different from what I am used to doing in my other classes. I had to adjust to a different style of writing when writing these blogs because I am used to writing more formal essays. Although this transition was hard to make at first, I grew to enjoy writing these blogs because they allowed me to think more creatively with the books. It was difficult for me to narrow my thoughts while writing these blogs because we were given very little guidelines in terms of the content of the blogs. Although it was challenging to write these blogs because they were very open ended, this aspect of the blogs allowed me to produce more abstract and interesting work.
I had experience writing online blogs in other classes. However, those blogs were on Black Board through the discussion board tool, which was different from this class because our class had its own website that was available to the public. I preferred writing blogs on our class website rather than on Black Board because the information about the course was easily accessible and it was helpful to read my classmates’ blogs before I posted mine. Reading my classmates’ blogs was helpful because it allowed me to think deeper about the books and develop my own ideas. I also felt that my style of writing was different for these class blogs than other blogs that I have written in the past because I knew that the public was able to read them. For example, I thought more creatively about how I wanted to present my information because I wanted my blog to be interesting to my reader. In contrast, when I posted blogs on Black Board my blogs were less creative because I was simply fulfilling a course requirement.
In terms of my attitude towards the blog as a whole I believe that I became more interested in it as the course progressed. At first the blog made me nervous because I was afraid that my blogs would not relate to the rest of my classmates’ blogs. As I grew more comfortable posting my blogs, I became less intimidated by the blog and more open to sharing my ideas. I liked that our blogs were reviews of the books because they allowed for more opinions and interpretations of the books. Being able to freely express our personal opinions of the books allowed for our class community to become stronger and we had more interesting conversations. I enjoyed reading my classmates’ blogs because there were many times that I never considered something that one of my classmates wrote about, which deepened my thinking about the books.
