My Blog Writing Reflection

The adjustment of the education sector to the computing learning environment is being paid much heed in recent days. This tendency did not pass by the teaching strategies, making the students work hard in the virtual world too, employing the blog writing as an alternative to a traditional paper-based writing (Lai & Chen, 2011). Thus, through the experience of blog writing I discovered myself from a new perspective, and in this essay I will focus on the most interesting revelations regarding the blog writing.

image source: http://www.digitallabz.com/blogs/7-ways-to-attract-more-blog-readers.html

At first I was very skeptical about blogging, reluctant to “think aloud”; though, after submitting my first post I understood that blogging is not only about writing and sentence structuring, rather, it is about the interaction and self-expression (Montgomery, 2015). In addition to the interaction, for me it is also about contribution and sharing. In other words, seeing my groupmates sharing their knowledge was the most motivating part of blogging for me, and because I wanted to post something useful for them too, I searched for the entertaining material more thoroughly and with more enthusiasm; so this experience nudged me to be less self-centered and more readers-oriented.

As for my writing style, it has undergone several changes too. In fact, the oxymoronic nature of blog writing has always been a mystery for me: possibly, because sometimes it is difficult to sound natural and at ease while writing the post when you know you will be graded. In this regard, I support Downes’s (2004) idea that “compulsory academic blogs were at odds with the spontaneous and authentic nature of blogging” (as cited in Deng & Yuen, 2013, p. 352). However, to my mind, it is even more interesting to “surf” between academic and informal styles, because students can express their real thoughts without hiding behind the shield of pseudointellectual words, so as to sound naturally (Montgomery, 2015, p. 3). In this regard, my writing style became more refined so as to be more comprehensible and lapidary.

Nonetheless, another epiphany which struck me throughout the blogging experience is not that bloomy. And this observation concurs with the empirical research of Nair, Tay and Koh (2013), who revealed that blog writing has a negative impact on students’ time management judging from the assignment submission rate. The submission rate of the blog assignments was nowhere near as high as the paper-based assignments, comprising 75 % and 93, 8% respectively, making the conventional paper-based assignments more reliable (Nair, Tay & Koh, 2013, p. 108). Unfortunately, I have to agree that online blogging just indulged my tendency to procrastinate and submit my assignments at the last moment, though when I wrote conventional paper-based essays, I was more organized. However, in my case, this can also be explained by a thorough and scrupulous searching for the interesting material and topic for my readers, which requires more time and energy.

To crown it all, blog writing was a very interesting and unusual experience for me. My writing became less self-centered and more readers-oriented, which reflected in the thorough process of refining and editing. Furthermore, blog writing helped me to get out of my comfort zone and be more autonomous in selecting interesting topics. All in all, blog writing helped me to learn more about myself as a writer, thereby, opening new opportunities for the further growth.              

References

Deng, L., & Yuen, A. H. (2013). Blogs in pre-service teacher education: exploring the participation issue. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22(3), 339-356.

Lai, H. M., & Chen, C. P. (2011). Factors influencing secondary school teachers’ adoption of teaching blogs. Computers & Education, 56(4), 948-960.

Montgomery, D.P. (2015, April). Did you read my new post?: Improving autonomy, English and engagement through class blogs. Paper presented at The International Conference for Building Cultural Bridges, Suleyman Demirel University. Kaskelen, Kazakhstan: ICBCB.

Nair, S. S., Tay, L. Y., & Koh, J. H. L. (2013). Students’ motivation and teachers’ teaching practices towards the use of blogs for writing of online journals. Educational Media International, 50(2), 108-119.