I feel the blog is something unique. Before this class, i didn't even know how to create a blog, don't even mention use it. I had viewed other students opinions, but it does not provide me an understanding of that student, or to know the student. I feel i was reading an anonymous paper since i just clicked the link, and not really know the name. In terms of communicating in class, i don't feel benefited from viewing others' online because opinion is just an opinion. People are having different experience, therefore will have different values on something.
There is a connection between the blog and the class activities. After we finished the activity, when we started doing the blog, we would need to refect back what did we did, and how were the things we did relate to the class materials. Thus i think the blog is effectively share my perception of the things we did in class.
In terms of professor's blog about the management topics, i feel they are interesing. However, i don't like to leave comments for those topics in a mandatory way. In the beginning, i didn't even know that we had to leave comments for the professor's blog, so we i looked through the professor's topics, and several students comments, my first reaction was that they are interesting, and that the students' comments are long compared to our regular comments to other students. For me, if there is no need to leave comments, then i would like to see more of the different management topics that are not related to the class study, otherwise vice versa.
About the counterbalance between the blog and the test, indeed, the blog is somewhat gives us a relief and a backup for our final grades. The blog grade is easy to get, and writing the blog does not cause you a lot of time. Unlike test which we have to study for a long time, and to get a good grade is something not easy. As a total, i feel that there is some degree that the test anxiety is been released due to blog.
After i finished this class, i don't think that i will use the blog anymore. I don't like to share my personal thoughts online.
I think for class activities, blog assignments are necessary since they can bring back the memory and able to let us understand the subject better. If the blog needs improvement, i think is to not force the students to leave comments for every topic or force to give a certain number of comments because sometimes i feel there is nothing to say about.
Self Exploring
- Qi Hu
- I am a senoir at Baruch college. I am majoring in Finance & Investment, and double minoring in Psychology and Natural Science.
2 comments:
I feel the same way as you did about the professor’s blog. I remember looking at his blog and seeing that there were a bunch of interesting posts. I read some of them but did not know that it was required to comment (kinda forcing popularity onto yourself there, don’t ya think Professor K?). However, commenting on the professor’s blog was not so bad because unlike many student blogs, it’s not something that was just pulled out of an ass.
This blog assignment definitely gave the class some sort of relief and comfort, especially after the atrocious midterm grades. I understand what you mean when you say that you probably will not use your blog anymore when you finish this class. It is reasonable that you do not want to share your personal thoughts online but there are exceptions to everything so if a personal thought ever crosses your mind that you want to share with the world, do not hesitate to post it on your blog.
Forced comments are a drag, but they are the only way other students can receive feedback from their peers. I know that some people write really short crappy blogs that they don’t give a shit about, which probably means that they leave really shitty comments too. In fact, I heard people talking on the elevator today about how when they are writing comments, they look for the shortest blog possible so they do not have to read that much, which means they leave a bullshit comment. If somebody is going to leave me a comment, I’d prefer it to have some form of genuine substance. So yeah, sometimes when you read a blog, there is nothing to say but if you have the time, look for a blog that you DO have something to say about, and say something meaningful.
In regards to your assessment of feeling obligated to respond to comments, I agree completely. At some points, there was not much substance in the blog posts or in the actual nature of the blog assignment to warrant leaving a comment. Yet, out of obligation, we are forced to respond and try to "further the discussion". I do disagree the extent of which the blogs really helped us understand the in class assignments. This might be a matter of opinion, but I did not feel I gained a greater insight into what happened in class by writing out the events or expressing my opinion of what we did. I do agree that for the most part, we did not further the discussion with our fellow students by doing the blog assignment. I think this is one area that our Professor should focus on and I provided some advise in my blog for that. I think above all, we at least learned to manage 20% of our grade, and this I agree provided a level of comfort.
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