BLOGS HELP US TO LEARN

Hey everyone

Im going to post my week 12 post now, as i have so many assignments due in the next two weeks.

After participating in this unit, i have learned the relevance of blogging, and i finally see why so many people, especially students spend so much of their time on blogs. Boulos et al, in 2006 writes " Because of their ease of use and rapidity of deployment, they offer the opportunity for powerful information sharing and ease of collaboration."(Boulos et al, 2006) This is very true, and especially in my experience of using this blog, i have found that it has been a great way to participate in discussion. It is very beneficial to people who are not confident to speak in tutorials, and gives them an opportunity to share what they think without having to speak in front of people. I think Blogs are a great way to enhance our learning experiences, as it creates discussion and many different opinions are contributed. I found that in cases where i was not to sure of what my opinion was, or when i lacked understanding on a topic, the blog was there and easily accessible, so i could read what other class mates had written and used their understanding to further my own. This easy access to the blog may be both a positive and negative factor. In my case, using it to further my own understanding is potentially useful, but what we have to bare in mind is 'How accurate are the posts, and Is the information posted reliable?' I found the blog beneficial to me, as the use of language among our blogging group was easy to understand, the posts were all interesting and most of them were very relevant to the class discussions.

Even after a whole semester of participating in the Weblog, i still don't consider myself a 'cyborg'. I do not spend hours on end, posting blogs or reading up things, i tend to just use the weblog when i am in need of a better understanding, so i feel that i am not completely attached and addicted to my computer. I am a Facebook user too, but even that doesn't convince me that i'm a cyborg. The definition of a cyborg is "a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices; "a cyborg is a cybernetic organism"(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn) and i do not fit myself personally into this definition, therefore i cannot call myself a cyborg.

I found this unit particularly different to other units that i have done, The involvement online, and the participation in the blogs has made it in some way more exciting and more beneficial to 'us' as the 'users', especially as i am from Zimbabwe, and internet access is very limited, therefore i have never been a blog user- well at least untill now =) The Workshops have contributed to our understanding too, and i found that the relevance of speaking about identity, friends and ethics in the digital age has given me a greater awareness of what is happening on the internet in our modern day to day actions. I like that we can access use the blog in order to get new ideas and opinions for our final essays.

Thanks guys for being an AWESOME blogging group =)

reference

Maged Boulous, Innocent Maramba, Steve Wheeler, 2006, 'Wiki's, Blogs and Podcasts', Mmc Medical Education, 6:41