I found this course enjoyable and informative. It provided a foundation of internet communication which emphasized principles rather than technicalities, and provided differing perspectives on how technology is affecting communication.
The process of writing a blog was a new one for me, although I have posted many times on various message boards. However, the blog topics I felt did not resemble a traditional blog in the sense that there is a narrative and consistency from post to post. We seemed to jump from activity to activity with little references to narrative. Additionally, such a decentralized system of information meant that discourse involving many students was made more difficult. The restriction on posting multiple times on the same person’s blog also hindered this process. The highest comment total on any blog I saw was around 3, and the way the blogs are set up it’s not possible to see updates unless I specifically visit all the blogs and check the individual posts. However, we did learn quite a bit about what is involved in blogging, and how to go about doing it.
The readings were also interesting, for different ways. Personally, I felt the Postman piece was biased, and at times I disagreed with his conclusions (although I did not dismiss them). Wood and Smith gave a more balanced approached similar to what a college text book might contain, giving balanced space to each side of the arguments.
The only thing I would change is the discussion board format. Firstly, the alternating posting and replying made it difficult to maintain a narrative from week to week. Secondly, there was no unifying discussion topic or point that posters could focus on and maintain consistency. I believe this would have helped the discourse. Instead, the posts were not only split down the middle in two different texts, but also the posts often covered vastly different subjects. This resulted in a peppering of many different topics and subjects which happened to interest the students as it related to the readings.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, and wish everyone well with their academics!
Warm Regards,
Aaron
I enjoyed the readings out of Wood & Smith more than those out of Postman as well, but mostly because I felt that Postman's language was more difficult to understand. I agree that the blogs made it difficult to read everyone's contributions each week. The Blackboard discussion board makes it much easier to keep up with everyone.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion board was certainly more convenient for tracking the thread. However, I found myself scanning everyone's blog anyway just to find a completed one to comment on. While I got used to it by the end, I felt like all of the information was too spread out. Much like most online classes I take, I really longed for a good ol' classroom discussion (in person that is). I had the opposite experience with the readings. I enjoyed Postman. The two books serve completely different purposes though. Online Communication is a textbook. It is supposed to present information that is pertinent to its subject (although I'm not sure it was accomplished). Postman's book is most certainly biased. It should be. It's his essay.
ReplyDeleteI also liked Wood and Smith more than Postman. I did think that Postmans conclusions were sometimes different than what I would expect. It was my first time using a blog and it wasn't so bad after I got the hang of it.
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