One thing I think I liked the least about this class has been the blogs, sure they have been a nice way to communicate with other students it has been a bother to me. Sure it was a nice touch to this unique class but to remember constantly to post our own blogs and commenting on others while doing the other homework for our classes it has been exhausting. Between working on this class, other classes, and work it becomes a lot to juggle for a student. I think that another problems with the blogs is that they became very narrow in terms of topics. We saw a lot of March Madness posts and then again recently with NHL playoffs not really tying in with the class. Personally I would cut down on the number of comments and posts needed while focusing more on the topics of this class. I know games is a broad topic but I also think that it could help to narrow the focus of this course.
To blog or not to blog that is the question.
-Michael Scheible
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Blogs, A Bother or a Benefit
I couldn't agree more Michael! As someone who despises "free writing", the blogging has been a challenge for me. I think this type of interaction is important however and has been an interesting experience for me. A few things about the blogs though.. I find the amount of posts/comments and the whole "max points" you can get per post or comment completely restrictive to creativity. Blogs right now are all being flooded and have been flooded with posts and comments that are just for points, and don't serve any purpose. I think it would be interesting if blogging only counted for guilds or something to that extent so it would be more about creativity and not to get the maximum points possible.
ReplyDeleteNormally I would be the first person to agree 100% with this post, but after the past few days of blogging, I really have started to enjoy it. Sure, I agree that there are way too many posts regarding the same topics (March Madness being on top), but I think the way different people write about these broad subjects is what differs them from each other and makes them more or less interesting. But, at the same time, I too have found myself puzzled at what blog to comment on. I really know nothing about sports, and I have had an extremely hard time relating or creating an opinion on something I have no interest or knowledge in at all. With that being said, I do agree that we should blog more on topics directly related to the class, but I don't think we should limit ourselves to just that. I like and admire the creativity aspect of thinking things up on our own and being able to share our opinion/ask for others' about a topic that interests us. I think this type of blogging brings out a creativity aspect in ourselves that even we may be unaware we have.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting that you brought this up because when I first started reading, I completely agreed with you. However, after I thought about it for a moment, I realized that I actually did enjoy some parts of the blog. With all the distractions in this world, we rarely just sit down and write what's on our minds. One of the speakers at TedX actually pointed this out. He explained that people rarely ever just think about themselves. People fail to look inward. I think the blog provides us with the ability to do this. It kind of acts like a journal in that sense. On that note, that is under the assumption that people are actually writing an honest reflection that truly provides insight to what they are thinking or feeling. I do think that by making the blog mandatory, the posts lose some credibility. Although I'm sure many posts are genuine thoughts, a great deal of them are just random ideas that people scrambled to come up with. However, I can't say that I would have taken the time out to write blog posts if it hadn't been mandatory, and taking time to just think about what is going on in my head has definitely been nice.
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