Jess’ E-Learning Blog

My experiences with blogging to date follow along the path of ‘heard of it, don’t want to try it’. My first understanding of the nature of a blog was formed merely from exposure from friends and the Internet. Therefore, the first thing I knew about a blog was that it was an online version of a journal or diary. Which brings me to the ‘don’t want to try it’ part of my original attitude to blogging. Why would I wan’t to publish my personal life on the Internet so that just anyone could read them? It’s a privacy issue for me.

However, I believe that a blog created for the purposes of academic learning and reflection is effective, interesting and perhaps not so revealing of my personal life The ability to disseminate not just information or knowledge but also thoughts, debates and commentaries on them excites me. I can see a world of possibility for interaction and growth between individual learners.

The world of blogging is much larger and diverse than I originally thought. What I thought of as being the sum and whole of blogging is only a recent detachment of the weblog world. My realisation came from reading an entry in Rebecca Blood’s weblog and realising what I can and would be using my blog for.

Blogging includes, but is not the sum of the reflections on one’s experiences or learning. Blogging is an instrument of communication, growth and learning. Even reading a social blog, you learn about the blogger’s experiences, reflecting on your learning and growing as a result. The act of reading the blog in the first place is an act of communication, furthered when you post your findings to your blog for others to read.