Got something to say?...blog about it.

As somebody who’s seen her fair share of blog entries based on personal takes on a movie, music, a day in the blogger’s life, or just any aspect of current events, it wasn’t particularly easy for me to associate blogging with being a fundamental educating component of a course. Of course, when I was younger, I had a little journal I would scribble away at, and at the time of my freshman year in college, my communications professor insisted we blog about what was going through our heads prior to and subsequent to presentations made (Were we nervous? Did we focus on notes/outlines to get through our speeches?, etc) With that said, when it was known that a large portion of our grade in this management course would be dependant on several blog assignments, I really didn’t know what to think nor what these blogs should entail.

Putting two and two together each time a blog entry was instructed to be completed and posted, it become clear that he was delving into the importance of being able to communicate our personal standpoints on a lecture, an in-class activity. After all, it goes without saying that without standard ability to get a point across in any scenario, professional or informal, there’s no basis for growth. In this case, the growth not only signifies a grade-boost but a growth in our thinking capabilities in general; the growth of being able to relate lectured concepts to our world outside the classroom. With that said, though not exactly a way I pictured taking time away from other courses, this blogging-method proved very effective and enjoyable on a number of aspects:

[1] In terms of the basic communication-task at hand, I do believe it gave us as students that opportunity to voice ideas, feelings and thoughts that we may avoid sharing outright with the rest of the class during in-class discussions. Some people are clearly more timid than others and often keep to themselves rather than engage (I can safely say I have those days) so this kind of gives those students, and even those who do voice their stance on things, the opportunity to say more than they often want to in class without any restrictions. Additionally, these postings give way to learning more about one another rather than directly asking each other questions in class as we often don’t have time to do. Reading blogs and noting that some may have gone about an activity a different way or had a different way of thinking about a topic addressed in class, it gives us as open-minded individuals a chance to take in more than we often find ourselves doing and discover what we should probably think or do next time such a task is presented just for the sake of varying things up a bit, something I totally took to.

[2] Whatever the blog posts had hoped to accomplished intellectually, it did all of that and then some. Something that allowed students to not just go through an activity and call it a day, it provided us with a means by which we could actually see the lecture notes come to life and we had a hands-on approach in the process, leaving us with only a better grasp on the concepts rather than mindless memorizing from the textbook. Furthermore, the blog-postings gave us an opportunity to bring whatever was going through our minds in the midst of each activity and share it with classmates, often finding that many were in the same boat, in terms of initially not necessarily knowing how to approach the task at hand but eventually delving into it to learn so much more than just of one’s capabilities of working among others in a group.

[3] Aside from reading postings of fellow classmates, it was interesting to read over the entries posted by Professor Kurpis himself, just to see how he went about those little things we would subconsciously think about but never really give too much thought to. Things that were a step away from anything discussed during class time and those things we had probably never thought to consider before were definitely a great way to explore horizons of what else the world has to offer and whatever else there is to think about when we have that second to spare. I could’ve sat there and read those posts countless times because there were quite a few to choose from but a post that stood out to me was the mention on failure, something that success quite frankly does not exist without. While that may be obvious, I can’t say I actually took time to think that prospect through and to see it there in writing makes it something to think about in the long-run.

[4] I felt the blog assignments were perfectly reasonable in terms of how much time was given to complete each entry and how much of our grade it would represent. As long as we could set time apart from the rest of our studies to let ourselves complete these assignments that I felt were so much more interesting to get through than 95% of what other courses ask of us, it didn’t really seem like too much for Professor K to ask of us. Of course when exams come into the picture and other assignments for other courses surface, it gets a little tricky to manage ourselves and these postings accordingly but when there’s a will, there’s a way. It was a fun way of ensuring 20% of our grade would not be lost and it wasn’t on the one-way-street basis of just typing our thoughts up in an E-Journal, it paved the way for interaction with peers, as mentioned prior, thus making it all the more enjoyable. Though if anything, I would’ve liked at least a bit of feedback as to how we’re doing with our entries: should we put more/less emphasis on something or other, are we capturing the essence of what was asked of us, etc.

[5] Never really having this kind of perception of how interesting and actually, pretty enjoyable, blogging can be, despite having been assigned things to blog about, I may just decide to continue posting little updates here and there. Additional articles I may find relevant to what this class has left me with, the usage of concepts lectured/applied to in-class activities on a day-to-day basis from here on out; the list goes on and on really but I surely don’t see myself abandoning this means to communication and keeping track of how I’ll continue to go on about my life so that years from now, I can look back on this blog – reading a few entries of my own for the sake of amusement and curiosity of how much of a difference a few years can make or perhaps, the level of consistency over the course of the years.

All in all, the blog was a very helpful course-component primarily because it gave us an opportunity to apply whatever we had taken from a particular lecture session/class activity in such a way that it worked for us, rather than a meticulously assigned course paper. Some may think otherwise but for me, the blog assignments helped me get a sufficient grasp on the material because I made it relative and applicable to myself, interpreting it and thus, memorizing the foundations of each chapter more efficiently. As I'd briefly mentioned prior, the only thing I really would suggest was to provide feedback subsequent to each posted entry so that students can get a better understanding of whether or not the structure of the blog fits the basis of what is preferred.