For the past several weeks as part of this class you have been an active member of a blog. I want you to think about your relationship with our blog and blogs in general and respond to the following questions: Part (1)--What is a blog?
What are the genre conventions of a blog? How do you know what they are? How is a blog different and/or the same as working in a more traditonal medium for homework? What new knowledge did you create as a result of blogging? Why do you believe we, as a class, blogged instead of did more traditioinal form of homework?
Part (2)--The life of a blog
Think about the life of a blog. A couple weeks ago you created a blogging map. What was your process for creating that map? What keeps a blog alive? Do you actively follow a blog, and if so, what one and why? Would you ever create a blog for yourself and why/why not?
Part (3)--Bring it all together
What theorist that we have read--no matter the time period--might advocate for blogging and why? Do you believe we in the middle of a blogging revolution?
Per normal: target 500 words and engage with others.
Due: Monady, April 4, 2011 by classtime.
When I think about a blog, I think about a website that is dedicated to providing a more immediate perspective on a topic than traditional news sources. Blogs are often run by one or a few select individuals, and they have a more personal perspective that doesn't have to filter out all personal biases or views in their content. The other aspect of blogs that always comes to my mind is the way they can provide a hub for online communities with a common interest, which is the sort of blog we have here for this class. Working in the blog rather than doing more traditional homework assignments is different because I think it provides more cohesion between the homework assignments and the progression of the class from the beginning til now. Contained on one blog are all of the posts we have made, and to have all of our progress so easy to access and trace from the early posts to now has kind of tied everything together for me more so than a normal variety of different homework assignments would. As far knowlege I gained from blogging, I would say I learned about posting within an online community more through interacting with other posts at times and regularly contributing to this blog that we all have helped create to an extent.
ReplyDeleteMy process for creating a map of a blog focused on laying out all the different typical features you see in a blog as far as navigation and the type of interface they feature. But what I really think keeps a blog alive is the community it caters to. A successful blog reaches a group with a specific interest in the subject matter and provides a place for them to gather to learn about and then discuss that subject. I think without an engaged community, blogs don't really serve any purpose outside of providing an outlet for one person to speak out about something. I don't actively follow any blogs, but I could see myself starting one for myself one day because of my desired career path. I want to work in sports media, so I could see creating a sports blog for myself to provide myself a forum to write and espouse my opinions as I wish. While I don't really see myself as a huge blogger, I wouldn't mind having that type of space to work with, particularly if I had a base of readers providing me feedback and sharing their experiences or opinions. I think establishing that type of rapport with an audience would be really cool.
I think that you could call what has developed on the web in the last decade a blogging revolution because of the way blogs have changed the way news reaches people, along with changing the type of news people can access. Blogs allow amateurs to get their voices out, and anyone willing to engage in discourse on a blog or discussion forum can voice opinions and reach others. I think that like many of the other phenomena that have emerged in the digital age, the way that the internet allows people to connect to each other is a huge part of what has made blogging such a common practice and a significant part of the discourse that takes place on the web.
When I define a genre convention in my own terms, I think of it like the genres of film. Is it fitting to a horror, thriller, rom com, comedy, or drama? Basically it is the way you write and attend to your audience, according to the genre you’re working in. What I have learned from genre conventions by blogging for this class, is that it is a liberating format. We respond to a prompt paragraph and can go where we want with it, most of the time including scholars. I like that we can use the first person as well. We are also able to respond to our piers’ blogs. The traditional medium for homework typically, at least in college, is just reading the text, then discussing it in class. With blogs, we read the text, react to it, and then discuss it in class. I prefer this method over the typical method for homework. It’s like what we were talking about in class the other day, with transfer and memory. By blogging, we apply the knowledge every assignment, so it caringly forces us to understand then. I learned from blogging in this class how important it is to apply what you read, and really think about it. I have learned much from this class, not only what the texts said, but a method of learning that will aid me in the further. Blogging enabled us as a class to be able to fully understand the knowledge, apply it, react to it in our own way, and one day will be able to transfer it. I prefer blogging over the traditional form of homework because I think it is more effective.
ReplyDeleteWhen I created my blogging map, I thought about how I approach to writing a blog, every three times a week. It displayed elements of my composing process. I thought about when I read the material, interpret it, reread parts, and then write. This is what my blog map reflected. I think people and interaction is what keeps blogs alive. I personally do not follow a blog. I have been thinking about creating my own blog. Blogs can be very personal and this is what stops me from creating a blog about my daily life. If were to ever create one, it would be a blog that follows my professional life, and I would be very careful what I posted because you never know who could be reading.
The theorist I believe would advocate blogging is the theorist that wrote “How People Learn” (I couldn’t find the author anywhere on in the texts, so whoever he/she is this is who I choose). The theorist discusses the transfer of knowledge and emphasizes and importance of understanding rather than just memorizing. I think blogs serve as a method of understanding the material, and this will better serve us all to transfer this knowledge after this class is over. Its funny just transferred knowledge today from this class. I was writing an application paper for Fleck’s rhetoric class. The paper was on delivery and EWM careers. I brought up how if one edits a piece, a letter needs to accompany the edits. This letter must be delivered in the correct convention in order to be taken seriously in the professional world.
I think we are in a blogging revolution. We have learned in this class that media is constantly evolving. The online world is ever-growing, including blogs. The EWM major is new to FSU, and this in a way proves the blogging revolution, because we are now blogging in classes, such as this. Even in other classes the “discussion board” on BB is a form of blogging.
I agree with Eric, when he comments on the blogging revolution stating, “I think that like many of the other phenomena that have emerged in the digital age, the way that the internet allows people to connect to each other is a huge part of what has made blogging such a common practice and a significant part of the discourse that takes place on the web.” This element that anyone can connect on the internet is a significant factor that has made blogging boom.
Before this class, I had never participated in a blog before. I have come to realize, through blogging, that a blog is where people post their thoughts, ideas, and opinions on different subjects and topics. There are many ways a blog is different from the traditional medium for homework. The largest difference I noticed was the fact that I can see my classmates thoughts and answers to the homework posted. Never before had I ever thought about how this can actually help in my learning process. I always thought it was bad if I saw others work, since there were consequences in school for cheating. However, this form of interaction among classmates is very beneficial. For example, when I do homework on my own, I am limited to my own view of an assignment, and if I don’t understand it, I end up doing my homework wrong, that is, if I don’t clarify it beforehand. However, with the blog, I am able to engage with other students who often have different views on me and allow me to see what we are learning in a different perspective. The blog assignment is the same in that we only have a certain amount of time to do it and there is a due date, but we “turn it in” online rather than in class. Some new knowledge I created while blogging is that I can learn in a different environment, and that doing things online can be educational. Also, as I said before, I learned to interact with my classmates.
ReplyDeleteMy process for creating the blog map was the process I used when I blog. I thought about how blogs essentially start, and how it remains alive. A blog cannot survive unless it has people who use it. One person posts something and then another comments back and it goes on and on. However, if someone posts and no one comments back, the blog is no better than a traditional homework medium, and it will soon die. Eric says blogs are successful because of the “community it caters to”. This is true because if the community is no longer interested in what the blog stands for, then it will not survive.
I think we blogged as a class instead of traditional form because our culture today is becoming more and more tech savvy and people are online. It’s not that the traditional form is non-existent; there is just a new form that is changing the way we do things. So therefore, for this class, I am glad that I have had the experience of blogging, because it probably would not have been something I would have done on my own.
I do not actively follow a blog. I guess I just haven’t found something I would want to follow. I would have to say I would create a blog, but I’m not sure how long it would last. For example, when I’m in London this summer, I may create one to keep my family and friends updated on what I’m doing over there. However, I agree with what Alexis says about blogs being very personal and I don’t know how I feel about that. Even so, knowing me, I won’t want to be on a computer when I can be out in the city exploring London, so I wouldn’t spend much time on it anyway.
One theorist that comes to mind that would advocate for blogging is most definitely Jenkins and the definition of knowledge community and convergence culture. Convergence culture is the sharing of media across different media sources, which in effect, “enables new forms of participation an collaboration” (256). Jenkins emphasizes the fact that we participate in affinity spaces. An example of an affinity space would be a blog. We participate with others to share knowledge and ideas, and this is essentially the purpose of a blog.
Amanda Saxton part 2
ReplyDeleteI suppose we are in the middle of a blogging revolution. However, I am not as up to speed with digital media as I should be as a college student. With the blog, anyone is able to express themselves and aren’t restricted to the prestigious academia that prevent people from publishing. Because there isn’t a censor, more and more people are starting to catch on. Also, people like to hear what others have to say about what they post. I agree with Eric that the Internet is a large contributor to the success of the blog. Only time will tell if it can last until some new technological advance takes the lead.
I think using a blog for homework in this class was a really great opportunity to learn about something different. It incorporates the online part of the WEPO class and teaches us how to blog. I had talked about blogging in past english classes and had always thought about creating one. Over Christmas break, right before WEPO, I did make one. I really liked blogging. It gave me a place to express myself creatively. I always had all of these ideas in my head, but no where to release them. So blogging gave me this opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe life of a blog is like the life of a child. You have to nurture it almost. If you don’t keep posting and updating your readers, they aren’t going to stick around. This is what happened to my blog. I didn’t have very many to start with anyway, and then when I got back to school and got busy again, I stopped posting. There is no way anyone is going to look back at your blog if you don’t keep updating. This what I based my blog map on. I drew a map that started with an empty blog with no followers and ended with a blog with a lot of followers. All the stops a long the way included templates and colors and ways to make readers more interested so that they would continue to read your blog and more people would follow. I think this is also what Amanda and Eric are trying to say. Amanda said, “A blog cannot survive unless it has people who use it.” Eric also talked about the community of blogs and how they work because of it. Blogs are a communication tool for people to talk about something they have a common interest in. Kind of like the affinity spaces Jenkins talked about.
I think Jenkins would be a strong advocate for blogging because of his idea of knowledge communities and affinity spaces. That is basically what blogs are: a place for people to communicate about something they like. Most blogs have a central theme. And people follow them because they are interested in that theme. I think it helps to understand who you want your audience to be, if you are starting a blog. The problem with my blog is that there was no central theme. There was no way that someone would type it into a search engine and find it, unless they were searching for me. It was just a release of thoughts for me, and that’s fine, if that’s what you want to use the blog for, but it’s not going to get you an audience besides your friends and family. A good way to find your audience and get followers is to pick a central theme and then find other bloggers who write about the same types of things. Follow their blog, and they will most likely follow yours because you have the same interests. It’s like making friends.
I think we are in a blogging revolution and it is to our advantage to partake in it. As EWM majors, it is a great place to start if we want a writing career. It’s an easy way to publish your work and it’s something you can show to employers. It also gives you practice for the future of writing online.
A blog is a technological way to compose and allows the capability of creating one’s thoughts and ideas to be exposed on the web. They can be for pure entertainment, or they can be for education purposes such as we have done in WEPO all semester long for our homework assignments. They offer commentary from others, the thoughts and ideas from others, and a comfortable community for expressing thoughts and opinions. I feel that blogging is a better way (and different way) to learn than doing just an assignment on your own. It allows us to use our brain a little bit more when we read the opinions of others. It exercises our brain because we are forced to put our critical thinking skills to the test. I also think that it can show our professors how each student interprets what we are learning in class differently, and how well retain the information that is presented to us. I created much new knowledge when blogging throughout the semester. The one thing that I loved the most was when I found myself confused by one of the readings or topics that we were working on, I was able to jump online and read the ideas of my classmates. By doing this, I could see what type of answers and thoughts that Kara was looking for, and I could also come up with my own idea by emerging the thoughts that others had together. When we first got to this class at the beginning of the semester, I had never been in a situation where all of my homework was going to take place on a class blog. But now it makes perfect sense to me as to why we did this. I think we did blogging rather than traditional homework because it brought together all of the terms that we learned throughout the course of the semester. We used remediation, transfer of knowledge, editing (times we had to correct our own blogs), rhetorical situations, and much more. Most importantly, I believe the blog was a perfect representation of the term ‘WEPO’. It was all about writing, editing, and printing our words and thoughts online.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were assigned to create the map of a blog, at first I was like well how in the world am I going to do something like that?! However, after sitting down and thinking about it, the thoughts in my head instantly threw themselves onto paper. What can keep a blog alive can be the people portraying their own opinions, and the topic. I always found myself curious as to what others thought about. It keeps things interesting knowing how differently we all learn and think, and how we all learn and think from each other.
I have created a blog for myself in the past, and after picking back up on it this semester it is something I realized I want to start up again (because facebook is a form of blogging, but not my idea of a general blog itself). I like giving out my opinion on things that I feel strongly about, and even things I don’t so that I can gain insight from other people. My last thoughts are that I believe Kathleen Blake Yancey might be advocate for her own blogging sight. She has so many pieces, and a lot of our reflections came from her readings we read over the semester. I would be curious to see what her blog would be like! I do believe we are in the middle of a blogging revolution: facebook, myspace, journal sites, Perez Hilton, and more. There are many types of blogs for pure entertainment and it really is awesome. After this semester, I see blogging in a completely different light than I did before.
A blog is an online journal, whether it’s shared or private. If it’s a public blog, it can be commented on and followed. A blog is usually a personal website used to either enter personal thoughts like a diary or represent some organization like a class. It can also be used to market products and build a following of consumers for a certain company. I learned about blogging very early in life because my household has had a computer since I was in fourth grade and I’ve always been interested in learning computer technology. When I was in eighth grade I started my own blog on Xanga.com where I typed out my teenage angst and also shared my thoughts with my friends, who also had Xanga’s. I still write in it occasionally and it’s interesting to read all the things I wrote when I was young. To be completely honest, I was crazy. But writing in the blog did help release my very strong emotions and teach me a little bit about blogging.
ReplyDeleteWriting in a blog for homework is very different from conventional paper and pen homework. First of all, you get to read what the students before you said. You can base how long your response will be by how much the other students wrote. At the same time, like Eric said, writing in the blog provides cohesion between assignments. Not to mention, we can easily look back on all of them and make connections that would’ve been impossible to make had our assignments been on paper. Plus, we save trees. Go earth! I believe we used this blogging method in this class as a way to keep the discussion between students alive and online. Part of this class is being familiar with technology and knowing how to use programs, and blogging is the perfect way to keep students online and using the Internet to do their homework. It’s easier for you as the teacher to notice connections students make between the readings and the responses, and how they interact.
A blog starts with an idea. An idea you want to write about and share with the online world. To keep a blog going, you need followers. You want your followers to leave comments and keep a discussion going. And most importantly, the author of the blog must keep current with blog posts. The only way a blog can die is if the author stops writing in it. I actively follow a couple of blogs; my favorite being PostSecret where people post anonymous post cards with their secret on it. I follow it because I find it interesting to read other people’s secrets and when I find one that is similar to myself, I feel a connection with the maker of the post card. I also follow some blogs on my tumblr account, and I have a tumblr blog as well. I like to post images and videos I think are funny, music I think is amazing, and quotes that I find inspiring.
I definitely think Yancey would advocate blogging. Her piece Made Not Only In Words: Composition In A New Key she writes about how people everywhere are using new forms of media to spread information and learn, including blogs which she mentions specifically as web logs. I wouldn’t say were in the middle of a blogging revolution: were in the information revolution. Blogging is just a part of a big online information exchange that is happening right now all over the world.
The genre conventions of a blog are infinite. Before this class I had little experience in blogging, however I knew enough to know that it was a casual form of communication that could be just about anything. I feel that blogging is all about the individuality of the writer. Depending on the personality and interests of the author, a blog can range from funny and not serious at all to academic and most serious. For our blogs in class, the blogs were generally academic, however in each additional response to a blog you can see the different personalities of the students. Every blog is different, but when you are reading several blogs from a single author you can pick up on what the purpose of their blog is. I do not blog myself outside of this class, but I do read the blogs on runnersworld.com to get additional tips on running and fitness that I might not get from my coaches or the magazine itself. By reading several of the blogs I know that the purpose is to inform people who are interested in running on a variety of subjects relating to the activity. If you were to read Perez Hilton’s blog, you would be able to figure out the genre just from the content. Blogging is different than a more traditional medium for homework because it allows each student to be themselves and express their opinions in their own creative way. It is also less formal than other mediums and allows everyone to see each other’s ideas and engage with each other as they please. In this class I believe that we blogged because it not only opened our eyes to a new form of media, but it allowed us to practice writing through stating out own opinions and interacting with the class as a whole while doing so.
ReplyDeleteI feel that a blog is sustained through the author and his or her feedback from the readers. As long as there is something to write about, and the author feels strongly enough to write, there will be a blog. Also, as long as there is an audience to keep the interaction and feedback strong, the line of communication will stay open and continue on.
Yancey, out of all of the theorists we have studied, would most definitely advocate for blogging. In her article on e-portfolios, Yancey made it clear that students learn from the interaction and feedback of others. Like Stacey said, Yancey does support the use of new media in learning, and she even spoke of using blogs in her “Composition in a New Key” piece.
I do not know enough about the world of blogging to say whether or not we are in the middle of a blogging revolution. I feel that there are many benefits to blogging and following blogs, and I do feel that as technology becomes more and more prominent in people’s lives that blogging will become a great form of media to use in communication with others.
When I think about the conventions of a blog there is not one simple answer. The conventions of a blog are defined on an individual basis. There is not one set of conventions that can blanket over all blogs because the purpose of a blog can vary so dramatically. Blogs are used for several different functions, but they all share information on a specific topic. For example, a blog that is used to share vegetarian recipes would not have the same set of conventions as a blog that a person uses to keep their friends and family up to date on their life. When surfing a blog the conventions of it should be very apparent. A blog that shares vegetarian recipes would probably be less personal because the content is not very personal. The comments and feedback on the blog would be more informational, telling the blogger how the recipes worked and maybe making helpful suggestions for executing the recipe in the future. Unlike a blog with less personal context, a blog used by a person to keep in touch with their family would have a different set of conventions. The blog would probably operate similarly to a chat room, with family and friends bantering about the latest post. Although the conventions of these blogs may differ, they both are based on the same purpose. They are an informal and accessible forum to share information.
ReplyDeleteThe accessibility of a blog is a major part of what makes it so beneficial. Communication used to be thought of as a one way street, with the message traveling through a channel to the audience. This one way channel offered no opportunity for the audience to provide feedback. A blog allows the audience to get involved in communication. This evolution of the idea of communication plays a role in our WEPO class. A blog is a revolutionary way for us to complete homework because it allows us to take advantage of this new idea of communication. When we are given an assignment on our blog we are given a chance to read information from Kara and our peers, and then respond. I think it is important that we blog in this class because this communicatory style of learning emerges us in the subject matter while practicing our skill, composition. Also as Amanda Saxton mentioned, our generation is a technologically inclined one. So aside from the idealogical benefits of a blog, a blog is also a convenient forum for us to complete our homework.
When we were assigned to create a blog map I did not complete the assignment, but I when considering how to create my blog map I decided that I wanted to use an overarching metaphor. Personally I believe that a blog is similar to a highway. When you get on the highway there are numerous exits, signs, and ramps. They all lead us to different places. These places and features on the highway symbolize all the different opportunities and directions that a blog can take you. Everyone is on the highway for a different reason, but they all have the same goal. Just as people travel the highway for different reasons, people go to blogs for various purposes with the universal goal of gaining information.
I actively follow the blog Goodmorning and Goodnight. This blog is my highway; leading me to new art, music, quotes, and other creative works. I have looked at other blogs, but this is the blog I frequent most. Although I enjoy blogs a lot, I do not think that I would create my own blog. I do not have the dedication and commitment skills in order to keep up with a blog. I feel that for a blog to be successful you would have to be passionate about the subject matter. I have not happened about a certain subject that I think I would be able to create an entire blog about, at least not an interesting one. I admire people, such as Flourish, who have the intiative to create an online information site. In the reading by Jenkins Flourish and her online endeavors were introduced. I believe that Jenkins would advocate blogging because he spoke about affinity spaces. A blog is the epitome of an affinity space. People gather at blogs to share and learn about a certain subject, which is the exact definition of an affinity space.
ReplyDeleteAfter blogging many times in WEPO, I understand a blog to be an online writing forum where people share thoughts and information on a subject of interest. It’s like an interactive journal or news source, and sometimes a conversation between people. I would say that the genre conventions of a blog depend on what subject the blog is centered around. For example, with the class blog we are obviously set to a higher writing/engagement level than we would be with a casual, personal blog; however, I think the tone of a blog seems to be, for the most part, conversational. Because blogging is dependent on the participation of many people to be successful, it is different than traditional homework that would be done with a paper and pen. Instead of doing exercises, we get to respond and most importantly bounce ideas off of each other. For that reason, I think the main reason we blogged in WEPO is to not only familiarize ourselves with a booming form of communication, but also to share ideas, so that we can develop new ideas and knowledge based off of our intellectual conversation and opinions. Personally, I think you learn more when you are allowed to share ideas, and also when you are not given strict guidelines that limit your thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhen asked to create a map depicting the life of a blog, I developed a few locations that were all connected by different types of interaction that unfold in a blog. For example, the “Home” or main page was the center of the blog, then the other locations were the posts and comments. Each was connected by a pathway line of the bloggers reading, responding, and adding information. This to me, this is what keeps a blog alive—it depends on the level of interaction between users and the contributions they add to new posts. I also agree with Stacey’s opinion that “a blog starts with an idea.” Without that one idea, there would be no motivation for any response, which keeps the blog going. At this time, I don’t have a my own blog, but in the future, if I ever have any spare time, I think it might be beneficial to have a blog just to keep generating new knowledge for myself, and keep exploring new ideas in an active online community.
Knowing all of these components of blogging, I would have to agree with Amanda when she says that Jenkins would advocate blogging. His idea of a knowledge community could not be more perfect for the idea of a blog. What better outlet is there for exchanging information with people who share your interests? When I think back to his example of the Survivor fansite as a knowledge community/convergence culture, with everyone contributing one piece of information to the pool of knowledge, I think the same characteristics can be attributed to a blog. Blog members exchange information and opinions based off of a particular subject they are all willing to respond to. As far as a blogging revolution, I’d say that yes we are right in the middle of one. More and more people are interacting online via blogs, not only because it is easily accessible and even trendy, but also because it is a personal form of communication and information. In response to what Stacey said, I think that yes, we are in an information revolution, but to me that also includes the blogging sphere since it relays forms of information. Due partly to blogging, information is spreading like wildfire online-- it’s new media revolutionizing old media.
The genre of a blog is related to its topic and to those who are able to find blogs and those who are able to utilize them. If you google a topic, you are likely to come across a blog about it, especially if it is pertinent to pop culture. Our blogs differ from traditional homework in that we are able to communicate our ideas with our classmates more easily and effectively. Before we started blogging in this class, I did not realize that blogs were more than just for the blogger’s satisfaction. Blogs have purposes and stories. It’s participating in a “knowledge community”. Each one of us cannot get every single idea and/or communicate the same message as everyone else in a 500 word post. We blog to understand interactive media. This is so vital to the media today. It is not enough for the audience to just have the information, but they also need to be able to respond to the information and to others that have received the information.
ReplyDeleteI used my own blog to create my blogging map. My blog is mostly just for my entertainment, and I do follow some blogs and some of my friends’ blogs. I like blogging because it is a place where I can write up ideas that are just for me, not things that I were assigned, though a lot of what I write about pertains to school. I often use it to make connections between other courses or current events that I can’t really use in the classes at the time because they can be quite irrelevant. Followers and purpose keeps a blog alive. I would not say that my blog is very alive because I do not do a great job of keeping up with it and its more for me to read than anyone else. For example, one of my friends is doing a semester abroad in Germany, so she created a blog that she can use to recount all of her experiences and to upload photos to. I follow it because I want to learn about going abroad because I would like to go abroad and I want to see if it’s worth it. I also follow a woman who works in public relations for Oscar de la Renta. One, the photos and insights she gets are amazing. Two, this is relevant to my major. Keeping up with this blog is part of her job. What if this is part of my job one day and I have to know how to do this effectively?
I would think that Yancey would support blogging. Blogs are often the result of reflection. I think you could probably use a blog to measure reflection. I believe that when my friend looks over her blog of her time in Europe, it will be similar to what we will go through while we are doing our digital portfolios. I agree with Kelly when she says,” A blog is the epitome of an affinity space.” I also think that Jenkins would very much approve of our untraditional homework.
The genre of the blog I feel has always been a sort of public place to share your personal opinion. A blog can cover any topic from your own everyday life experiences to entertainment, gossip, or like this blog, to serve as platform for educational discussion. Blogs have a relaxed informality to them because they not only allow the sharing of word and images but also for sharing audio and video. The fact that anyone can reply to a blog (as long as the blog editor allows it) makes it an open forum for the public, both professional and nonprofessional. I know these things because I’ve had experience with other blogs. The only way you can understand the conventions of a blog is to get involved in one, fallow one and/or comment. Blogs have become very much mainstream within the last five years. We blog in this class because it’s a new media that’s becoming common place in the way people communicate and share ideas. This makes it close to essential for the EWM major. More traditional homework would get the job done to a point but it would not be the same kind of open forum between classmates like a blog.
ReplyDeleteThe life of a blog tends to progress along with the persons who keep it. The blog is only what you chose to put into it. A blog is kept “alive” through its contributors and its audience. The blog editors must continue to put content into the blog but they cannot improve without feedback or obtain any notice from others. In this, blogs are like any other medium, new or old. That being said, my blogging map was just a simple sketch that represented the subjects that make up one particular horror movie review blog. I myself have followed a few blogs off and on again over the last couple years. Most of them were movie review blogs like the one I mapped. I fallowed them because movies are a topic I care a lot about and find entertaining. A few times I even attempted maintaining my own blogs. Once I created a movie and book review blog called Wordslinger Reviews (Wordslinger is a common handle for me) and it did not last long because I could not maintain an audience and eventually I lost interest in the project itself.
We are in a sense, at the height of the blog success. While blogs still are used largely as journals or social tools there are also many instances of the serious blogger. Ordinary bloggers are becoming journalists in their own right. Jenkins is defiantly the theorist that comes to mind when I think of blogging. Blogging is the perfect grounds/example for media convergence as Jenkins describes it and blogs can be considered affinity spaces. Tiffany H said in her comment that blogs are often the result of reflection and this is true. The review blogs I follow are a reflection on the experience of watching a film or reading a I book. The same is true of travel blogs or everyday life blogs.
When I think of what exactly a blog is, one of the conditions my mind goes to is that it must be online. Basically, a blog is a certain subject, issue, point of interest, etc. that a group of people communicate by writing about it online where the other group members, as well as the rest of the online world can see and comment back on it with their own opinion. I feel like the genre conventions of a blog hold a vast variety and can pretty much extend to anything. Any subject that people are interested in can be used in a blog. I think blogs tend to go along with people who are more interested in writing or creativity of sorts, but it isn’t impossible for there to be a blog, let’s say, about chemistry. Blogs are a lot different than traditional ways of doing homework. If we were to just write in response to homework on a sheet of paper or type something up and turn it in, then nobody would be able to see it but the teacher. Blogs give the opportunity for peers to engage in intellectual conversation with each other concerning the matter at hand, and with such a variety of people, the responses that can be seen could possibly open the eyes of some students who may have never had the same process as someone else. Overall, I think blogs maximize learning and ideas of the members of it. After blogging this semester, I am open to other people’s ideas. I know myself, as I’m writing, sometimes it just flows out of my mind and I come up with ideas that I may not have originally had. This being true for probably most people, it is beneficial to engage in what they are saying as well to expand my knowledge. This also helped when I was more confused on certain subjects and questions; their responses could kind of give a foundation for the prompt. I think blogging helped us all in being able to communicate with peers which could be very similar to a career one day and it will help us be able to communicate with co-workers on a subject at hand. As a class, I think there are multiple reasons why we blogged for homework instead of a more traditional way. The point of our major, Editing, Writing, and Media, and this class, Writing, Editing, and Printing Online, is to compose and edit, well, online. Also, a major point of WEPO is to get us more used to doing things digitally. I think the blogs, especially when we had to create our own blog, helped with getting us used to this digital age, especially because as we enter our careers, more than likely we will have to have a good understanding of composing digitally. Also, blogging allowed us as a class to communicate and share ideas and give feedback on others ideas.
ReplyDeleteWhat keeps a blog alive is active participation and communication. This is obvious. As long as the blog doesn’t get boring and the bloggers continuously contribute interesting and new ideas and thoughts, the blog should stay alive as the bloggers engage with each other. I do not actively participate in a blog, but I would consider maybe one day starting one for myself. I think this could be a useful tool for people like me who have similar interests and life styles to read my work and comment back. It could be a form of editing and revision; they could give me more ideas and give feedback before I turn my work in to my boss or company.
ReplyDeleteI think Yancey would definitely advocate for blogging. We read an entire piece by her on electronic portfolios. Electronic portfolios share similar characteristic as blogs as in they are online, digital, and other people can see them and give feedback on them. Also, in Yancey’s piece “Composition in a New Key”, she discusses a lot of things about blogs and the evolution from paper and pen to blogs. She says literacy is in the middle of “tectonic change”. I think this means that the writing may still be the same, but the medium is a lot different, even improved. I don’t know about a blogging revolution, but blogs certainly have become kind of a big thing. On the internet, there are so many different sites that people can comment back on something. Of course there’s Myspace and Facebook, but people can also comment on YouTube videos and things like that. Blogging is also a way of composing that has so much more opportunity. Unlike writing on paper, with blogging you can include a lot of cool things like videos, images, etc.
I think Eric makes a good point when he describes a blog as a way to get news and information out faster. A news team probably needs to rehearse and go through formalities before reporting breaking news, but blogs really have no boundaries. I didn’t think about this before, but a lot of information can be discovered through blogging. Grace also makes a good point when she discusses her own blog that she maintains. I think it’s good to give your opinion on subjects you care about; and when she mentions that she even does on things she doesn’t care too much about, it’s not necessarily that she doesn’t care, but that she doesn’t have as much knowledge that she would like and she wants to know more. I think this could benefit me in things that I have limited knowledge about.
I had never personally blogged before this class. Of course I knew what they were and followed quite a few, but I had not left a comment or created an original post. The class style of posting to a blog and incorporating this genre into the format of work only augmented the subjects and genres of the other content we learned. A blog is generically a unique mix of genres, for it is an online source with the potential to be printed. In order to truly be a blog, there must be the opportunity for outsider reaction, in this case, in the form of comments. A blog is also unique because it allows for a dialogue between its author and the audience, rather than simply submitting an assignment or even posting to a discussion thread, to some extent.
ReplyDeleteThrough blogging in this class, I learned to actively participate in discussions on a digital genre and how to critically analyze comments and their purpose. Also, through the opportunities to create our own posts, I learned the basics of formatting and style. This class calls for its own distinct way of communicating and reflecting, rather than doing ordinary assignments. It is for this reason that I believe a blog was the perfect format for our work. It allowed for interaction between students, which is imperative in a small class and for the discussion of the theories and subjects we were studying.
My blog map was an outline of the United States. It correlated the creation of a blog to the colonization of the new world. It began with ideas, which I think are the building blocks to any successful blog. Since anyone and everyone has the ability to blog, it takes special ideas and a lot of creativity to make your blog relevant and interesting. Also on my blogging map were comments and opinions, which are vital to a blog because commentary and input from the audience are what keeps the blog alive. In this way, it is also a medium of speech and communication, and it is this interaction that also keeps a blog alive. Just like Kaylie said, “as long as there is an audience to keep the interaction and feedback strong, the line of communication will stay open and continue on”.
I actively follow two blogs. The first is an online diary of one of my sorority sisters as she documents her experience of being an au pair in Germany, just months after graduation form FSU. The second is a very popular blog among college women, known as CollegePrep. The author of this one is a college student who profiles her thoughts and tips for staying stylish and organized while navigating through life as a girl in college. While I follow them for two different reasons, both of these blogs help me stay connected and current. Obviously the former is more personal than the latter, but I enjoy reading the new posts and getting to experience life with both of the authors almost firsthand.
I don’t have any previous blogs and I do not think I ever will create a blog for myself because I suffer from the classic problem of inconsistency. Authors of blogs are constantly posting, rarely uploading, or some happy medium of the two. Either way, there is a certain rhythm to their process. I would be so sporadic in my posting that it would be almost impossible to know when to check the blog for an update or a reply to a comment.
I completely agree with Alexis in that I believe theorists that would advocate blogging is the authors of “How People Learn” because “blogs serve as a method of understanding the material, and this will better serve us all to transfer this knowledge after this class is over”. I don’t think we’re necessarily in the middle of a blogging revolution so much as a digital revolution. Though I’m sure the quantity of blogs and bloggers has increased in the past few years, I’m not entirely sure that it has fully taken hold of the digital world as much as other forms of social networking have.
A blog is a webpage that people with a common interest can come to and have conversations that can serve to educate all parties involved. I agree with Eric Fisher when he says “I think about a website that is dedicated to providing a more immediate perspective on a topic than traditional news sources”. Blogs do not have to follow any policies that would ensure that absolute fact is being posted. Consequently, Blogs are subject to opinions of the Bloggers and can be misleading if not used correctly.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to my experience with blogging as homework for this class, I find it very helpful to be able to see what other people’s opinions are on the readings that we have done so that I can have a more developed point of view when it is my turn to write. Being able to see what other students has opened my eyes a few times and has lead me to notice things that I might not have had I not read what they had written. I also feel that many of the reading assignments we have done and reflected on through writing blogs has been beneficial to my learning. These Blogs have made me stop and think about what exactly I have read and learned both in class and through the assigned reading. Therefore, I am assuming that we blog for this class so that if forces us to reflect upon what we have read to ensure that we have fully understood the theories that we needed to absorb.
The map that I drew up was a painting of the creative process. Since I did Aristotle’s Rhetorical Configuration for my newsletter assignment I decided to use his ideas about composing. I believe I drew a light bulb, textbooks, laptop, and minion type characters communicating with one another through use of telephone wire type devices. When it came to drawing my map up originally, I thought about what I learned from the newsletter assignment and from taking this class in general. The symbolism of the light bulb represents the rhetorical situation that sparks the reason for blogging in the first place. The textbooks represent that knowledge that people seek before they Blog and the knowledge that will be acquired through Blogging. The use of the laptop is relatively self explanatory because it is where the Blogs are posted and the tool that connects the people involved in the Blog.
When it comes to theorists I agree with Amanda Saxton when she says “One theorist that comes to mind that would advocate for blogging is most definitely Jenkins and the definition of knowledge community and convergence culture”. Jenkins is the first theorist that occurred to me when I read this assignment because Blogging is such a big part of the idea of a knowledge community and a convergence culture. My opinion is that we are most definitely in the middle of a blogging revolution because it is the easiest way to reach a massive quantity of people who want to listen to what you have to say whenever you want to say it. Access to information is the theme of this whole generation so blogging is most definitely a big part of that.
A blog functions as a personal opinion outlet for an individual or a group of people to share thoughts and ideas with the world in a manner, which initiates discussion. Blogs different in topic greatly, many provide commentary to current events, and many others focus on more obscure topics such as cooking with cast iron, or playing Quidditch. A blog is more different than traditional homework in the fact that there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer. A blog welcomes personal bias, and expects one to explore their own perspective when answering certain questions. When blogging you are also tasked with absorbing other people’s perspective and responding to what they believe in. As a result of blogging, I have learned to better express my own opinion and argue my points more effectively. I learned that supporting your opinion with hard facts better proves your point, making it easier for people to believe you. As a class, I believe that we blogged because this class is centered around the aspect of modern human interaction. Blogging forces us to craft arguments and showcase our opinions in a manner that people will read and believe us. The fact that your comments can be viewed by others forces us to write in such a way that will be convincing.
ReplyDeleteMy process for creating a blogging map was to first find a blog and fully explore the website. After I combed the specific website, destructoid.com, I was able to create a map that reflects the topics and genres unique to that website. Destructoid.com is one of the most successful gaming culture websites on the web. What keeps this blog alive is the sheer amount of content that is uploaded on a daily basis. Every day there are several bloggers reviewing games, quelling rumors, and answering questions from the community. I actively follow several blogs, one of which is desctructoid.com. Another blog that I follow a lot is knowyourmeme.com. I follow knowyourmeme.com because I love Internet culture. KYM is a “foundation” dedicated to tracking and documenting memes as the appear on the web and proliferate into real life conversation. Rebecca Black’s “Friday” was documented the second it reached 1000 upvotes on Reddit. The most interesting part of KYM are there “developing” memes. A meme that only is popular on certain websites and not necessarily considered a full on internet meme yet. I love these memes because I can not only follow KYM’s coverage of the meme, but I have the capability to follow it by myself, possibly adding my bit to the greater internet culture. I created my first blog when I was in middle school on a website called redvsblue.com. Back then, blogging for me was a pastime. I wrote entries at least twice a week and had back and forth arguments on gaming, anime, and the such. Currently I have a blog where I usually post my creative writing pieces and occasionally rant.
As many others have stated, Yancey is definitely an advocate for blogging. After reading her piece on reflection, I realized that a lot of blogging deals with the aspect of reflection. Many of the personal blogs I read, including mine, reflect on certain aspects of their life. I’ve seen bloggers reflect on first time experiences, or even reflect on their blogging experience itself. Personally, I don’t really believe we’re in a blogging revolution. I believe that the blogging boom has come and past. There have been many blog websites that have come and past, and there aren’t really any new ones emerging. Most people that I know today that consider themselves “bloggers” use websites like tumblr which, to me, basterdized the aspect of blogging. No longer are people writing their opinions on topics…its more about “30 day song challenges” and taking a picture of yourself and writing a sentence about pointless crap that you either hate or like. For the few true bloggers still out there, I do commend them on their vigilance and their desire to keep blogging a true writing and art form.
Before the start of this class I had really no knowledge of blogging. It was something I had no prior exposure to and I had only really heard about blogs when they were talked about on the news. I had actually never really read or even seen a blog, or if I did I was not sure if it was a blog or not because I really had no idea what constituted something being a blog. But now as the semester comes to a close I find myself becoming more and more involved with the blogging community. I now constantly read blogs in subjects that interest me, as well as occasionally participate in the conversation myself. A blog is an online community where people can share and express their thoughts and opinions on whatever subject they please. It truly gives the writer as much freedom as they could ever want to have when it comes to their own expression and creativity. The other thing about a blog is that it genre conventions can greatly vary depending on how the blog is written. There are many blogs on the web today and they all vary in genre depending on who the intended audience is. A blogger can do whatever they want with a blog so it is hard to classify all blogs into one genre category. There are ways that using a blog for homework in this class are sort of different and similar to doing homework in conventional ways in other classes. The concept of just posting something and having the students respond to it isn’t anything new. If you wanted to you could easily accomplish the same thing by putting this on the discussion board and have each student respond to it on there. But although it could be much similar to the blog, it would not produce nearly the same effect as us using the blog. With a discussion board thread students would not engage in each other’s answers. They would simply just post their answer and be done with it. The blog encourages students to engage with one another and actually put more thought and effort into their answers rather than do it for the sake of getting it done. Also, by using the blog you are able to have the students learn the concepts of a genre they are unfamiliar with. I can easily say that, as a writer, the blog has done nothing but improve my skills and push me to better myself with a genre I was unfamiliar with. When we did our blog maps in class my process was just too simply go thru my favorite blog and try to map out the course of navigating thru it. I have begun to read more blogs since starting this class but the one that I now actively follow is the Tosh.0 blog. He uses his blog as a way to post more funny videos and pictures he finds online without having to go through the use of his show. It gives him a good creative outlet without having to worry about TV rules and guidelines. I believe that you could say we are in the middle of a blogging revolution. More and more blogs are being cited in major news outlets. I agree with Zeke that Jenkins is the theorist that can mostly be identified with blogs when he talks about media convergence. Blogs are truly the best example of this that exists today.
ReplyDeleteBefore coming into this class I had a bit of prior knowledge about blogs and how information was given out through a blog. We have explored different types of blogs and how anyone really can make a blog. It is a unique to really any other type of
ReplyDeleteThe life of a blog seems like it would be the same as any other form of technology. You make it, you add to it and it grows. This is true but with some variation. Like other forms of online information sources, blogs grow when information is added to them. What makes them extremely different is that the information doesn’t have to go through anything to be published on the Internet. The user is the blog’s writer, editor, and publisher. This gives an insane amount of power to whoever is commander in chief. Another huge thing that makes a blog different is the open field for strangers to leave comments and responses to the unpublished things that you say. This is extremely unique that you immediately receive this feedback. If you published any other way, people’s opinions have to be sought out rather than thrown in your face. I think it was a good idea to use a blog rather than just a simple discussion thread or something like that on blackboard. It makes sense as far at the class goes as well because everyday we are discussing new medias and how new technology is present in our society. A blog is one of the more prominent means of putting information out on the Internet today and it is only fitting that we aid in this new wave of technology. The blog also makes our class more interactive as opposed to closing ourselves off from what other people are saying. We are instead encouraged to read other’s responses and give our feedback and either affirmative or combative responses.
As far as other people’s blogs go, I don’t have any that I would say I actively follow. I do have a blog myself but and really slacking in the posting department. It is just so hard, on top of school work and life to then remember to post something interesting on the internet for people who you don’t even know. It just isn’t that high on my priority list. I actively try to keep up with it but am failing miserably. I haven’t posted since spring break and I just feel that the longer I go without posting the more spectacular my next post has to be. Its like I feel all this pressure because it has my name on it even thought it really doesn’t matter at all. I believe that more and more people are jumping on the blogging bandwagon because I genuinely think that people have something interesting to say. Before writing and publishing were for novelists and journalists. Now, people who have a strong enough opinion can voice it to the world without needing any sort of validation from others. Maybe it is not even their opinion, maybe it is just something that they want to share with the world like a photo blog or a cooking blog. I would say that the blogs I visit most are cooking blogs with recipes and photos of their creations. I find it extremely motivational and all I want to do after I read them is to eat and cook. That is what these blogs should be doing. Making people inspired to go out and do something.
A blog is a form of media that, in my opinion, combines the informative style of a news outlet and the self-reflective style of a diary. It is informative and shaped by our own interests. A blog is alive. It engages us. It allows for connection and discussion outside of the classroom when distance separates us. It allows the class to exists in a continuous time span outside of 11:15 to 12:05. It is through blogging that I became more aware of the way media has affected the way in which we learn. A blog teaches us how to communicate ideas in an active space that allows us to collect our thoughts properly. We are able to extend a comprehendible message in a way that physical dialogue can't. Not only that, but others may engage with us. We can formulate our responses and present them to the author. It doesn't quite work the same way with books. I can't read a book and write a letter responding to the chapters in a book or to the work as a whole to the author. But with a blog, I cant respond to the author. Not only that, but I can respond to truth. Most blogs contain a good amount of nonfiction which means the things that are being discussed are real. Through discourse communities, I can take part in giving and receiving information and commentary that will allow me to construct my perception of truth.
ReplyDeleteWhen creating my map of a blog, I took into account the access to discernment we have. We are able to truly collect our thoughts and words not allowed by speech. We can scrutinize our language better on a blog. This plays an important role in keeping a blog alive. Even throughout the day, we are blogging in our thoughts: picking out memories, structuring our blog prior to sitting down and forming it. A blog allows our daily lives to serve as a constant preparation for a post. I currently do not follow any blogs except the one for our class, but I'm definitely considering making a blog because I think if anything, it's good practice for proactive rhetoric. It sharpens our language in pulling people into an informative story. Like Amanda says, it's something that we can show to employers: a way that we can get our writing out there.
I think that Bitzer would be a strong proponent because of his theories on rhetorical situation and moving people to action. I think blogs bring to light important issues, presenting them in the form of rhetorical situations. On a recent episode of the office, someone made a comment about blogs being outdated, about blogs being "Early Naughts". I disagree. It's only because of this class that I've truly become interested in blogging and I think a lot of people are the same way. I don't think a majority of people follow blogs, but the more that we mediate from paper to digital media, the more prevalent I believe blogs will become. Just the way Jenkins talks about us shaping the news, I think blogs are an important step into that arena of communication. I think blogs are allowing us to inform others more dynamically then a newspaper or even most media outlets allow.
A blog as defined by the web community, more specifically Google, is the “read, written, or shared online journal”. I would have to agree with this definition, blogging in general is a very community based composition, many times blogs can be “replied to” or “commented” upon in order to exchange ideas or opinions. However I would most definitely have to say that blogs are for the most part informal, and that when writing on a blog space, there is a tendency to write towards a more lax or casual audience. The genre conventions of a blog are mostly for pop culture or for an audience who is more aware of social media and social networking. For example, I was explaining to my mother that I was having difficulty posting to the blogs because it wasn’t an ever-present, written assignment that I had to hand in a hard copy of and it was difficult to keep up, she then paused on the phone, and said, “What is a blog? Is that a project or something?” I would then have to reiterate my point by saying that Blogging is sort of like rock and roll music, it is specific to genre restrictions because not everyone knows about or listens to rock and roll- but we can all agree Rock and roll is cutting edge. As a result of blogging, I have gained a greater knowledge of the online community, as well as engaged with my peers in a way that I have yet to learn how to in the university setting. Because of this blog, I actually know who my classmates are and enjoy reading their responses which goes hand in hand with our purpose in WEPO.
ReplyDeleteWhen we created our blogging maps for class a while ago, I began by thinking of topics that would join together different people on a blogging space, and would create a conversation that would produce a substantial blog. Several things keep a blog alive and are instrumental to it being successful; these are limited but not including: Conversation, Participation, and Open-mindedness. These three elements in my opinion keep a blog alive and ensure that it is a learning space for all of its participants and not only a sounding board, but a topic of conversation. I follow my roommate’s blog, “Socially Unacceptable Jods”, and she presents ideas that are taboo in nature but not one sided in research and subject matter. She teaches some things that are “street knowledge” and offers things from relationship advice to free tutoring locations on campus. She has inspired thoughts (yes thoughts but no actions) about trying to start my own blog, but for now, that’s just between you and me ;).
If I had to pick a theorist that would advocate for Blogging, I would pick Cicero. Now this roman rhetorician would wholeheartedly understand the desire to create a space of learning as well as discussion and persuasion. Really, on second thought, to single him out would be rude of me, as all rhetoricians of this era were advocates of having a sounding board for debate and learning, so I will just say that he along with others would advocate the use of blogging in the 21st century as well as support the revolution of blogsters today.