I thought I would make my final blog post a reflection on the blog itself, using as a starting point the following mid-course feedback:

*Reflection - You are demonstrating sustained reflection on the course content and its application to your professional (and personal) practice.

*Regularity - You are posting reasonably regularly, and your postings are all substantial.

*Knowledge and understanding – You’re demonstrating a good understanding of the technologies and ideas introduced. You could engage more critically with the course readings. How do they impact on the way you understand the technologies, experiences and ideas you’ve come across in the course?

*Writing style – is excellent, making for an engaging read. Your use of the blog format (inclusion of pics, formatting etc) is above and beyond!

 

My update

Reflection: I initially had the rather simplistic sense that the purpose blog was to demonstrate the reflective learning that was going on in my head (look teacher I’ve been good, gold star please). I think this is because that is the kind of learner I was in a traditional classroom setting (waaay back), a quick to learn / eager to please type, and I fell into the same groove.  However the process of blogging caught up and took over and I found that the nature of the reflection sparked deeper reflection, which in turn led me deeper still.  I reread my posts and see them evolve – it is very satisfying.  Each post draws me in further.  I get a comment, I respond to the comment – either in the comment form, in a subsequent post, in a discussion board exploration or simply mentally.  It is a rather lovely process that is far more complex than it seems at first glance. I am still worried that I am not “academic enough” but I can see I am growing and have more confidence in my potential.  I am looking forward to the journey - which is good, cos at one course per semester it’s going to be a long one.

Regularity:  The regularity of the posts has been mainly down to prioritization / time management.  If I have had time I have posted.  The course as a whole lost me for a couple of weeks when I had to do my local tutor duties (ironically I am the F2F component of someone else’s online learning experience) and this took my attention and energy for a while.  It was a two week hiatus because I had a week of tasks and it took me another week to get back “in” to IDEL.  I read in the handbook that it was a good idea to check in daily and I can’t agree enough how essential that is.  It seems excessive but it is key to maintaining emotional contact as well as keeping up to date with discussion board posts etc. 

Another thing that I think affected my regularity was my struggle with style.  I felt I had to post fully “formed” thoughts, rather than fragments:

And I realised in that discussion that part of the reason I hadn’t posted as regularly as I had intended was the sense that I had to have a fully rounded thought before I could voice it. I wasn’t satisfied with posting fragments on my blog. I think this is because of my experience with blogging & reading blogs generally is of completed ideas being presented. Basically I am trying to use my blog as a canvas as opposed to a sketch pad. I think I will try and change that to see how it feels.

Well I tried, but I wasn’t satisfied.  I like to explore my ideas to some form of conclusion.  There is nothing final about them, a comment can reopen the topic (as I discussed above) and lead to new avenues.  But I couldn’t post fragments, and each post I made felt like a full piece of work.  It did mean I wasn’t able to post as frequently, but that (combined with time diverted into reading, discussion board posting, playing with the various web2.0 gizmos) was a compromise I felt more than happy to make.

Knowledge and understanding:  Your feedback here was very useful. I made an effort to “engage more critically with the course readings” and I felt the quality of my reflection go up a notch.  I was reading in the first part of the course, but I wasn’t doing the hard work of dissecting or digesting the readings.  It was more a case of reading and ticking it off my ‘to do’ list.  I think this was a symptom of simply being rusty with the process, but once I made a start on breaking down my reading (and simple things like highlighting key points / interest, adding comments to think about) the change in the level of my engagement was very satisfying.

Writing style: This is something that has amused me privately and I intend to touch on in it my final assignment.  For some reason, even though I knew this blog was an intimate tête-à-tête with my tutor the very nature of the medium caused me to post as if I was talking to the world (I’m bloggin’ to cyberspace innit?).  Therefore I tried to make every post not only useful to me (as a record of my learning process) and to you (to show you where I am in my learning process) but also interesting and entertaining.  Maybe I was trying to keep you coming back, to woo you.  It just happened, and I enjoyed it, so I went with it.  I have a story that illustrates a little of the compulsion:

 

A (True) Story

Friends of mine went on holiday to Southern Thailand.  They picked a bad week and it was raining and miserable (it’s not always blue skies and palm trees).  As they were trudging down a road sharing an umbrella they saw a stretch limo parked outside a 5-star hotel, so they paused wondering who had access to such ostentatious luxury.  At that moment the lobby doors flew open and a slew of bodyguards trotted out followed by…

 

 

*dramatic pause*

 

Bill Clinton!

 

They stood there with their mouths respectfully open as he jogged down the stairs to the waiting limo and as he was about to get in he looked up at them. They did the only thing that it is reasonable to do in that situation which is grin like a pair of fools and wave madly at him.  He beamed and waved back, but as he raised his hand must have been seized by his presidential alter ego because he gave them the full works, turned slightly to the left, then to the right waving and smiling as if confronted with a substantial and appreciative crowd.  My friends were a little embarrassed for Bill because they were in fact the only people in the street, but they puffed up a bit in order to try and give him the sense of ‘public’ that he so obviously needed.

So Clara (and world) thanks for being so many things, IDEL tutor, support, friend and audience of millions.  I have enjoyed it thoroughly and learned far more than I expected.  

 

Let’s do it again sometime.