Mirror, mirror on the wall, a bloggers reflection

I find it hard to separate the blogging experience from the blogging assignment. At one point at class over last weekend, after hearing the confessions of a number of colleagues, I stood up at my table and said: “Hi, my name is Julie, and I didn’t blog this week”. It seemed I wasn’t the only one sitting sheepishly, apologizing to the members of their blogging groups, promising to “do better” next week. I wonder how many members there would be in the IST611 chapter of BA (Bloggers’ Anonymous)?

Having said this, to look at my blog you would see that I was a presence throughout the semester. I felt, however, that I was never doing enough. In many ways, the blogging assignment became the place where I parked my anxiety. I think, in fact, I know, that this is because there were other people relying on my postings to fulfill their course requirements. So, if I didn’t leave a meaningful post, or (as happened at least twice), I did not post at all, the consequences were not solely mine. Furthermore, as the semester wore on, and our IST611 assignment deadlines coalesced with IST668’s, blogging truly became a dark cloud on weekly horizon.

Fortunately the nature of weather is its changeability. I do not have a totally negative view of blogging as an experience. As a life long journal writer, I took more naturally to my blog as a place to express myself, my feelings about what we were exploring, and to share insights and observations. At one point mid-way through, as I struggled under the mounting pressure to perform, I found refuge on my blog and unconditional support from Beatrice, Kate and Thea. It was invaluable during those times; I am grateful for our blogging group.

While length is never an indicator of quality, I know that I posted better ideas and made deeper insights when I had stretches of time to respond. Early on, before I started my fieldwork and practia assignment, I could take the laptop outside with early morning coffee to create my posts and respond to others. Those opportunities diminished as time went on.

To me, blogging by assignment seems artificial, but without it would I have ever continued the blog I started two years ago? My first blog entries were about the Pope John Paul’s death. Now entries include wikis, clickers, podcasting and virtual museums. I have a good feeling that I’ll continue posting, I just wonder who, if anyone, will be responding?