I honestly thought the blog was rather a great way to do homework. We were able give our personal opinion about a specific top, and discuss what we agree or disagree with other students. Discussions made things really interesting because everyone was able to reach a sense of what a person felt about the topic. It was interesting to see when someone disagreed with me, and when I reread my blog only to find that my blog clearly stated what they argued about. The best quality about the intense discussions was how they offered ways to improve your writing and thinking process. Having everyone's opinion and insight actually made me an overall better writer because I was challenged to consider everyone's opinion when writing my essays. At first I thought the blog was going to be a waste of time, but as the semester went along I really took advantage of it and in the end it made me a better and more efficient writer.
I love how we were capable of using our blogs to answer any questions we were unsure about class. I know if we unsure about a particular subject we would just include it in our blog, and then we would discuss the problem in class. This allowed us to not only receive help from our teacher, but it allowed us to all get involved and help each other. The blog really allowed us to get involed in our class in a different way. It was great being able to work with everyone, and being given an opportunity to be associated with everyone. I became a better a writer because I learned how accept critism much better.
I enjoyed how we did not have to be as formal as we would have to be on an essay or journal. I think that gave us an opportunity to really be able to express our thoughts an ideas with our peers. In a sense it made writing about the topics much funner and easier for us. It gave us some relief knowing that we didn have to be correct about everthing but just write for once, so it was a bit of a relief for us. That made me a much better writer because it increased my ability to think and just express how I feel more clearly.
I think what made the blog a much better experience was the fact that the teacher was involved as well. I cannot think of too many courses whether it was high school or college that the teacher was willing to setup different ways, ssuch as a blog, to help and get involved with the class and students. That concept I thought was absolutely one of the biggest pluses to the blog experience. It was another way for the students to get personal assistance from the instructer, and allowed each of us to benefit in the specific areas we may need help in.
The grouping system could definitly use an improvement. It drove me crazy when I was the only one in my group that actually did the blog for three weeks straight. The solution to this problem I do not think can be accomplished for the simple fact that the teacher cannot force people to do their blog. However, the people who actually care about their grades and do their blogs should be grouped togeteher. It should not even matter whether or not the students are in different classes. Students that do their homework should not suffer for the students that do not. Students that are willing to complete their school work should be grouped together for blog purposes.
