TIME DOES FLY
Well it feels as if only yesterday I moved into the dorm and started classes here at Tech, but really it is almost the end of the first semester. I can still remember when Dr. Tryon first assigned us our blog assignment. It was an assignment to last all semester. We would be required to write one entry a week, a reflection on something we had been assigned to read. At first I thought the assignment sounded really stupid, and I was not very interested in it. Slowly however I started to enjoy blogging. I was free to express my opinion and it gave me a feeling of release. So blogging went from being a pain to being something I looked forward to every week. I enjoyed it so much I even started my own
personal blog. Even though I was enjoying blogging there were times when it was a struggle for me. Let me recap my semester of blogging introducing you to my best and worst blogs.
For starters I wrote an
Introduction blog that was meant to simply introduce myself to the reader. I think it was by far the easiest blog but an important in creating a connection between the reader and myself. My hope was to make my introduction welcoming as well as informative, and I think I did this effectively. Even though it is an into to myself as I read it now I can see many changes in my personality that have occurred over the course of the semester.
Looking back I remember reading Tom Daschle's blog, and I recall writing my first true
blog entry about what I thought of it. I was not impressed at all by Daschle's travel log as he so calls it. So I decided to voice my opinion, and I did. Calling Daschle out on his use of pathos form of persuasion I tried to make it clear that Daschle was simply counting on people reacting to the sad stories he posted on his blog. Although I was able to see that certain people might react to Daschle's blog the way he had intended for them to I looked beyond the sob stories and found...... well nothing which was my whole point!!!
Another blog of mine I thought was successful was a blog I wrote about
pictures and the purpose they serve. I think this is a successful blog because the topic was something I was very interested in, and that I had mixed feelings on. For these reasons I think that writing the blog came fairly easy to me, and I was able to say exactly what I wanted to. I also like this blog because it allowed me to be a bit more personal and share some of my personality, and not just my opinion.
Now that you have seen a couple of my best blogs lets take a look at a few that were more of a struggle for me. The first blog that comes to mid was a blog I wrote about an essay we were assigned to read entitled
"The Storyteller" by Walter Benjamin. This blog was a struggle for me for a few reasons. First of all the reading was difficult. Walter chose to use a lot of difficult words, and his style bothered me. Another reason it was hard was because I was not interested in the topic. The one thing that saved me was that I completely disagreed with his argument. I simply used my blog to bash his ideas and warn others to avoid his essay at all costs. In hindsight I wish I had put forth a little more effort on this blog. The content is fairly weak and I didn't put the focus where it should have been!!!
Another blog I found I had some trouble with was a blog I wrote in response to an essay by Tara McPherson,
"Reloaded". While I enjoyed this essay and agreed with many of the points Tara made I still found this blog more difficult. I think this is because there was a lot that could be said about this topic and I was trying to cram it all in one tiny space. At first glance I don't think that the blog appears to be that bad, but when I look at it I am not satisfied. Although I touched upon a lot of good points I feel like I completely missed what I was trying to say. This was something I was aware of while I was writing this blog, but I could not figure out what to do. Eventually I became so frustrated with the blog that I gave up and forced myself to be satisfied.
Overall I think blogging is a very effective learning tool, and a fun project as well. I enjoyed posting to my blog and I was able to experiment with different writing techniques while doing so. At the start of the semester there was a lot of focus on argumentative persuasion techniques and I think that trying to find those in essays and other blogs and then blogging on them myself helped me a great deal in understanding those concepts and ideas. I would recommend blogging to anyone it is great for any purpose, and easy to use.
Well I guess that about wraps it up. I am one final away from the end of my first semester here at Tech, I am finished with Dr. Tryon's class, and I have brought my blog to a close. Thanks for joining me this semester. I hope my blog has been of some interest to you, and that's it......I'm all wrapped up....bye!!!!!!
I personally enjoyed very much getting to create a group blog. I thought It was a very interesting project and really neat to be able to see different viewpoints on certain subjects. It was really cool to see the other groups present and I thought they all did a very good job. I was really impressed with one of the
group’s blog. It seemed to be really together and it had a lot of fun extra things on the site that caught my attention. The group I’m speaking of focused their group blog around comedy movies. Each of the members choose several movies to watch and then write on and rate. I really liked the reviews and AI thought that adding the pictures to their blog added a nice touch! I recommend checking it out. I thought that all the movies they mentioned that I had seen were hilarious and those that I hadn’t seen I am going to try to watch sometime. The group not only summarized the movies but they also analyzed the type of humor in each of the movies. I thought their opinions were very well researched and thought out, and I am eager to see the movies that are on their list that I have not seen yet!
