I started this blog because of the course requirement. I have my own blog as well written in Chinese. At the very beginning, I thought that I would not really indulge in blogging as this blog is obviously for academic purposes only, but not self-expression. Yet, I find that I really enjoy writing this blog now because of all the creative and useful comments given by my EN4166 classmates and lecturer.
I still remember one of the lectures, we were taught about how different people use blog to communicate with others. For example, when we talked about new education tools, we compared two blogs: one was to seek help and one was to introduce tools to bloggers. One thing really impresses me is that, how comment works on the writer and contributes to the blog. For the one which mainly focuses on seeking help from bloggers, he really got so many replies from both teachers and students. Teachers shared their same frustration towards the new teaching method and support each other; while students also leave comments to give advice. At this stage, blog became a powerful tool to connect people together, not ordinary people but the ones who were also interested in/ concerned with the same issue. Though the supports were from the anonymous, this would boost the writer to continue his writing as well as the road as a teacher trying to use new education tools. For another blog, it provided a number of selected new education tools, with screenshot and guide to use which are very user-friendly. A huge number of comments also included appreciation towards the work by the writer. Less recommendations were given in comments may be due to the fact that the post had already covered almost all aspects and the post actually served as recourses/ reference page.
By now, I have typed a few posts. The first one was about the brief description of the new media tools introduced/ presented by our classmates. My very first intension was just to remind myself the pros and cons of each tool and appreciate what my classmates had presented as I found their analysis was very useful and comprehensive. Blog post may be a more casual way to express our own opinions about the lecture as blog originally or say, is normally treated as a self-expression tool which does not require any special format or guidelines. There is more freedom when you use blog rather than others as the environment seems to be more relaxing or casual.
