Personal Blogs

Hello All,

Before I read the article, I asked myself why I was blogging, both in general and specifically for week 10. I am not new to the phenomena of blogging; I have done it before. I kept a cycling blog a couple of years ago, but due to lack of time, I have hardly posted any messages since. The reason I was blogging was that I wanted to share my thoughts about the cycle tours I did. I encountered nice scenery, took some pictures and posted them on my blog. I wrote some comments about the tour and that was it. Looking back at my Blog (http://eusiebiking.web-log.nl/) now, I still enjoy reading it and still enjoy looking at the pictures and think: “shame I haven’t kept it up to date”.
Setting up my OU blog was something different. The reasons were different. I have set it up because it was part of the activity. I did not mind doing it; I do not mind writing in public. However, I can imagine that not everyone feels the same about this, I guess it’s a personal thing.

I found the Kerawalla article quite interesting. It helped me to define what kind of blog user I am. I tried to categorise myself but found it hard to do. I’m definitely not someone who avoids blogging. I do enjoy reading other blogs as well, some of them are very well written and I enjoy reading funny comments. I have looked up blogs from the H800 course, which I’m currently doing myself as well and have to say that it was interesting to read what other students had to say. I admit that I looked up my fellow course mates first and later on, I started to read,  and comment on,  other blogs as well.

I don’t mind making spelling or grammar mistakes in blogs (I’m not an English native speaker), although I try my best to post my messages in the best possible way.

I don’t work with learners who blog, but I can imagine that feelings described in the article are universal. I certainly recognized myself in some of the quotes.

If I had to encourage learners to blog, I too would make the activity flexible. I would introduce it first by getting the students to read various blogs and analyse them. Do they like them? Why do they like them? They could analyse the writing styles. Would they do it differently, how and why? Finally, they could write a blog themselves and then read each other’s work. Activities like this might help them to adopt a blogging learning style...I think.

The paper concludes that there is a range of behaviour towards blogging. I agree, I think it is the same with using new technology in class. Not everyone will like it, not everyone adapts well to new technology.

Well, those were my thoughts and  according to the Kerawalla paper I think I am a mixture of a self-sufficient and resource network building blogger...if such a thing is possible??