I am currently a senior at Michigan State University. This semester I am in two classes that require me to write blogs. I have been in three or four prior to this semester as well. I am going to be using this blog primarily from my CEP 416 class. It is an online course about technology/education. The first time I was asked to use a blog for class about a year ago I did not see many good things about it. However, my opinions have changed a lot since then.
I suppose sometimes it is east to start with the things I do not like, unfortunately. For me, as a college student, blogging just seemed like a mindless task I needed to add onto the long list of tasks to do before the end of the week. I would always find myself doing my blog posts last and rushing through them. I would only do the minimum amount of comments on other people's posts as well. I never really felt that I was getting much out of them but I cam to realize that this was because I wasn't really putting much into them either. Once I grew into it toward the end of that semester I started to see some of the positives of blogging for classes.
The first good thing that I noticed was that many students who rarely shared their opinions in class really seemed to find their voice on the blogs. Blogging gives students a comfortable environment to share their opinions while having a chance to explain themselves before being interrupted, seeing an eye roll, or a hand raise. I also like how students can log onto the blog at any time and share their thoughts and they can also interact with students about readings in ways that were never really possible before.
I am looking forward to finding even more positive things about blogging within my courses this semester.
