Journal Entry #15: "Digital Education"

Journal Entry #15: "Digital Education"

It was really impressive to see some EWC students helping Mr. MacDonald's law class get into the 'blogosphere.' I realized that as a group this semester's EWC students have some specialized skills that are likely to serve them well in various contexts (school, work, recreation).

How do you feel about blogging now that you have had an opportunity to develop a history with it over the past two and a half months? Do you feel that you are more or less organized and productive than you would be "the old fashioned way?" What are some of the advantages? What are some of the drawbacks? What advice might you give to students starting the course next semester about how to get the most out of their blogging experience?

In the past few months, I’ve really come to like using the blog to submit assignments. I find that it makes things a lot easier. If I finish an assignment, regardless of when, I can just go online and submit it. I don’t have to wait until the next day, or Monday, which is good considering I’m not very organized and have lost assignments in the past. That’s another reason why I like the blog: I’m not organized. My binder (until today) was full of loose, scrambled papers. The blog allows me to take up minimal space in my binder, which is a definite plus. As a matter of fact, today I organized my binder, and divided all of my subjects into separate binders, instead of the single binder I had prior. I was very surprised to find that, out of the 200+ pages in my binder, only 6 of them were from this course. If only sociology was done online. . . The blog is also very effective because I’m only given the necessary work for the class, rather than a bunch of internet print-offs on the subject (as I can just research information on the subject on the computer during class). I also like how a calendar which contains outlines and information for all our assignments is posted each month. That makes it extremely easy for me to know exactly what to do, how to do it, and when it’s due. I find that I’m also able to get more work done by working online, as I type much faster than I write (I would consider myself to be a fast typer, but a slow writer). The fact remains, working online has definitely helped me stay organized, and on top of my work in this class.

On the other hand, I feel it is damaging my productivity. While I don’t go on Facebook during class, a few other students and I will get sidetracked by looking up things on websites such as Wikipedia. The problem with this situation is that you can’t block every website, as we all explore the internet when we do our assignments (researching writers, looking at poems, etc.). It’s a situation that relies heavily on trust, and some of us abuse that trust.

While an almost entirely online course is a great idea, it's not without it's faults, though they are few in number, and minor. The main problem I find with the online aspect of this course is how frustratingly slow the internet is at times. I’m not sure what causes the internet to work so slowly, but I’m getting pretty sick of reinstalling FireFox every day just so I can use the internet at a decent speed. This is likely just due to the amount of people using the internet at the same time throughout the school, though. Another minor drawback with the online aspect, in my opinion, is using Diigo. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great feature, and makes it easy for me to check my marks, and view comments. I just hate how I have to search the list of recent activity in order to find comments on my posts. Then, once I find one, I have to do it again for other posts, as Diigo won’t just save a list of all comments on every post of mine in one section. I’m fairly sure that there must be a way to change this, but I haven’t really tried to. The only other problem I find with the online aspect is typing on Blogger. At times, I will try to change a characteristic of certain words, and the whole entry will be affected (becoming a larger size, bolded, etc.). It’s not that I don’t know how to use these features, it’s that they don’t work properly at times. I’ll try to centre a title, and the entire post will centre. No matter what I do to correct it, I can’t. The entire thing will be either centred, or none of it will. There are other times when I’ll try to put spaces between paragraphs, and it won’t let me. There will be spaces on the pre-submitted form, but there will be no spaces once I submit it. If that happens, I have to deal with the annoyance of putting in the HTML code equivalent of hitting the "Enter" key. These are all minor annoyances though, and are small in comparison to the pros of using the internet.

To other students who use a blog in the future, the only advice I could really give is: "don’t get frustrated at the things I just mentioned," "use FireFox" "save your work," and "try to stay on task." The internet can get extremely slow, to the point of sheer frustration, and it’s so easy to get distracted, as you are given more freedom than you would in other classes. Just force yourself to not check Facebook every 10 minutes, and don’t let the little things get to you, because using the internet is so rewarding in the long run for this class. Also, save your work. Nothing is as frustrating as losing something you've written, or having to re-type it. As long as you follow that advice, I can’t see you having much of a problem in this course.