Blogtroduction
When I first read that we were going to be blogging this
semester, I was very excited. Blogging has
been part of my life for approximately a decade, as I used to be a very heavy LiveJournal user. Generally speaking (err typing?), I like the
style of communication. Blogging allows
an author to communicate ideas in an uncensored and less formal way. I have also seen Blogging be incredibly
dangerous and go awry when people type and post before they think about the
implications of what is going on the Internet.
My curiosity for the semester had been piqued.
This style of
communication and learning feels incredibly appropriate and modern for a
current issues course, and I appreciate the willingness to try something other
than a test or a formal, cited essay.
After all, learning can be demonstrated in a multitude of ways and what
better place to explore that then in education course in current issues.
Like many of my colleagues, I identify as a lifetime
procrastinator mainly because I have always gotten away with it. When I read that this was to be a self disciplined
exercise and to be done on my own time, I may have panicked a little bit. I made a personal vow that this time I would
not procrastinate because doing 9 blogs and 36 comments in one night seemed
like a really bad idea—and I probably would not have gotten away with it.
To help with this problem, I created what I call a “Blog log”
with date ranges for posts, comments, and titles of entries. I am a Myers Briggs “P”, and though I do
possess some “J” tendencies, this is probably the most organized I have ever
been in my entire life when it comes to an academic pursuit. Ultimately, the strategy paid off, and I have
been very consistent about my posts and comments throughout the semester.
Here is the “Blog log”:
All-Star Blogs
This assignment asks us to link to our “best blogs”, but I
think it’s more appropriate to separate them in a bit of a different way. Instead, I will two blog posts that were most commented (or perhaps this means most controversial).
My most commented blog post entitled, “Official
Pub Crawl? Seriously!?”, centered around my institution’s homecoming
practices. This post it seemed to elicit
strong reactions from my peers. While I
did not comment back to anyone, I was very intentional about some of the
language I used around getting the name of the event changed, never using “I” or
“me” directly. I feel I received credit
for some actions that were not necessarily mine alone, but instead of
collective set of actions amongst my colleagues and me. This post also felt somewhat validating for
me, but I also appreciated my peers who disagreed with my position and opinion.
The blog post
that received the second most comments, “Official
Facebook, Official Strike, Official Mess at SIU”, discussed both first
amendment right issues as well as the rights of governing bodies such as the
board of regents or trustees and student voices. This post also elicited a comment so long it
would not fit in the comments section and ended up being an entirely
new post.
There are a
number of other blogs that I thought were topical an interesting, but they
received between just one and four comments total. These included, “Title
IX: It’s not just about Athletics Anymore”, “And
the CC's think enrollment is booming--Hong Kong's ENORMOUS incoming class of
2012”, “Free,
Global Education”, “Student
IDs Tied to Financial Institutions”, “My
two days with President Obama('s Administration)”, and “Reflections
on NASPA IV-W, Views that Inspire”. One of my posts, “RateMyProfessors.com: This post is
Chili-Pepper hot!”, was just written within hours of this
blogfolio, so it is too soon to tell what kind of response it will receive. Thankfully, none of my posts received no feedback
whatsoever.
The number of
comments on the posts (and by who—meaning by which cohort) also seemed to be determined
by how close we were to the next weekend class meeting. The closer we were to the meeting, the more
activity I saw on my posts in terms of readership and time to first response.
Blogflections
The
overall experience of blogging this semester has been positive for me. As mentioned in my introduction, I really
enjoyed the ability to demonstrate my learning and to contribute to a
discussion without having to create a formally crafted, traditionally cited (citing
by linking as opposed to APA’ing) essay that no one but my instructor will read. I am a believer in constructivist learning,
and the blogging model really allowed me to learn from my peers and, hopefully,
for them to learn something from me as well.
I think the blogging could be used for something similar to Mendeley, and can be especially valuable as
the doctoral students in the course approach comprehensive exams.
Also in
my introduction, I discussed the fine art of procrastination. Learning and writing in the blogging format
also forced me to engage in the class on a weekly basis, whereas I believe the
weekend format otherwise would have allowed me to push Current Issues to the
back burner until the in-person meeting occurred. I also appreciated that the blogging allowed
us to drop an entire weekend of in-person meetings.
In this
era of readily available information, it also becomes very easy to miss
critical issues and hot topics even if one does regularly read the Chronicle of Higher Education
and Insidehighered.com. It was very helpful for me to read posts by
my peers in order to catch up on current issues that I had missed in my daily
research and reading. Since there such a
wide array of professionals enrolled in the class in a variety of functional
areas, I also really enjoyed hearing about what my classmates thought of as current
and critical issues.
My
favorite part about the blogging experience was that the Lowry and Greeley
cohorts were permitted to co-mingle in the blog setting. While I enjoyed the first class meeting as a
large group, I feel it would have been overwhelming for an entire semester. I also feel there is a large amount of added
value to the course by allowing this free flowing of ideas, as opposed to
separating the two cohorts in the blog setting.
Learning this Semester
I
absolutely love it when learning in a classroom setting does not feel
laborious, dull, or repetitive. For me,
this class did not feel like any of these things, which I greatly appreciated. The biggest learning moments for me happened
while engaged in deep group discussion for extended periods of time. I enjoyed the balance between formal readings
and the discussion on those and discussions of the current issues as created by
the blogs.
I think
I learned the most from the discussions on “PC” Halloween, international
education (including recruitment practices), tenure, and degrees and
administrators. The expertise
demonstrated by my peers on all of these issues really helped me to engage in
the issue at hand and stay present in the discussion. I think the best learning moments occurred
when we disagreed, were challenged by each other, and sometimes got a little
bit heated. At the end of the day, I
really appreciate my colleagues’ ability to have levelheaded, yet intense discussions
on a multitude of issues and still remain respectful.
One of
my favorite observational learning experiences this semester happened during
our second in-person meeting. After
lunch, the Lowry class was given three choices.
We could discuss women’s issues in higher education, guns on college
campuses, or we could work on our letter to the editor assignment. Our class divided by self selecting into one
of the three categories. Every single male
in our class elected to discuss guns on college campuses. The women in our class divided into the other
two groups. The women elected to talk
about women’s issues possess a variety of professional roles. The women that elected to work on the
assignment fell into just two professional categories: student conduct
administrators or registrars. I am not
sure exactly what this means, suffice it to say that student conduct officers
and registrars tend to be a logical thinkers and task-oriented people. I wish it were taken the time to ask a few
more questions as to why people selected the way that they did, but it might
make an interesting study someday.
Some of
my learning occurred while learning the nuances of software. I am challenged by some of the technical
shortcomings of the Blogger site itself. For example, I feel like I should be able to
click on my profile, or anyone else’s for that matter, and see their entire
library of posts. I also feel like there
should be a feature enabled for comments and/or comment tracking. If I had not maintained a blog log for the
entire semester, I would have had to have gone back and searched for all of my posts
and all of my comments. In casual
conversation, many of my peers also expressed frustration with this technical
shortfall. Also, using Blogger required
everyone to create a Google account.
Since I am already a frequent Google user this was not a big deal for me,
but I wonder if this might create a barrier in the future for other students
who are not as technologically engaged.
Overall,
this class was a great introduction into HESAL electives and it makes me
hopeful for the courses I plan to take in the future. Moreover, I think this class balanced our
core course in terms of practical application, intensity, pragmatism, and
teaching style. Thank you, classmates,
for an intellectually stimulating semester.
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