The end of an era...

This will be my final post.

As an IT person, I was already familiar with the concept of a weblog. In fact, as previously mentioned, I already have an active weblog at LiveJournal. However that is a completely personal weblog, not an academic/professional one such as I have had here. I found the use of weblogs quite interesting here, because, despite the protests of my some of my classmates, I think they are an extremely effective way of communicating. I think some of my classmates were expecting to instantly generate readership simply by existing, whereas I know that it takes time, and a commitment to entertainment and education, to really build up a strong readership, something which we didn’t really have time to build over the course of six weeks. When I first started my journal, I had about ten people reading it (people listed as “friends”), all of whom were friends in real life, and it was they that had convinced me to get a journal in the first place. Now, that list is expanded out to over seventy people, which may not sound like much, but then, the Internet being what it is, its not a good idea to just add any person as a friend. :>

Once again, my academic journal was very different to my personal journal. I use my personal journal to communicate to friends, both ones who I met in real life and who subsequently got journals, and those that I met through journaling, up to date with what I am doing. I don’t describe everyday mundane stuff, although a lot of people do, but rather I tell stories which I think would interest people, for various reasons.

Once again, this varies from a personal journal, which some people use to record their innermost thoughts and feelings, recording facts and details which they don’t want anyone to see. Some people use their online journal for this, but I have never found a need for this in real life, so I don’t use my electronic journals in this way either.

I found the use of blogging a useful exercise in terms of the assessment of the unit, and it definitely fits in well with the ideas and themes of the unit. Unfortunately I probably didn’t dedicate as much time to my journal as I could have, or maybe even should have. But I definitely think it should be continued to be used in this way as an assessment item.