My Winter Blogging Experience (Reflection Essay)

My first experience blogging was a new and fun way to keep track of all the work we did this quarter. I have never gone through a class by being able to utilize blogging as our required assignments and it was helpful to say the least. Blogging in our class allowed me to check up on work that I had not done yet by looking at other classmates blogs to see what was due that week if I happened to miss class (February 15-17) . Looking back at all my blogs, the earlier posts that I started in the class were similar to the ones that we ended with in the class given that my research paper was interrelated with the first book we read in class, “Lost Mountain” –Erik Reece. Other than this similarity, there were also some distinct differences within my blog posts throughout the quarter as well. While I wrote my blogs throughout the quarter, I didn’t really allow the fact that anyone could read my work to affect what I wrote because I had knew that I needed to be critiqued on my writing since that was why I took this class. People were able to criticize my work by posting comments on what I had to say as well as what I had to say about others’ works. I read and wrote these comments and they were very helpful to my learning and also hopefully helpful to others. Writing about the course readings, films, and presentations via blogging helped me understand more about the course material because I was able to see how each topic related to the overall theme of the course.
Among the similarities of the from the earlier blog posts to the later blog posts, I feel like there were differences as well. As a class we started talking about water contamination and problems with coal extraction. From the beginning of the blog assignments to the end, I set my own objective to finish what the class had started and that was to elaborate more on the topic of destruction of our ecosystems. However, the blog posts did differ by means of the topic of the environmental issues. I remember the first week or two of class we talked about how the world is losing its supply of drinkable water sources due to companies such as nestle and coca-cola. Moving on from the water supply issue we jumped right into “Lost Mountain” which talked about deforestation and mountain top coal removal in the Appalachians. Reading this book resulted in the interest of my research paper. After “Lost Mountain” our class shifted from environmental issues to food production issues in the book we read and movie we watched, “Food Inc”. This book essentially talked about the malpractice of the industrial food production companies. Among the malpractices that industrial food companies perform, the book also talks about how our food is produced. These companies introduce harmful chemicals and steroids to make our meat and food production into a faster cycle in order to make an extra buck. The alternative of supporting these companies is to start your own garden and buy groceries from local farmers markets. The differences in the topics that we posted on our blogs vary in terms of different important issues related to the realities of today. I also think that the cause of the change was to show the class that there a many environmental and non-environmental issues that pose as a problem in today’s society and we were to think of one and write about it in our research papers.
In terms of my strongest blog post, I think it had to be one of my “Lost Mountain” posts, specifically my blog posted on Wednesday January 13, 2010. I think this is my strongest blog because out of all of the rest that I did this quarter it stands out the most in my mind. This blog talked about the second part of the book “Lost Mountain” and I was able to connect it to the movie “Flow” that I watched for extra credit. This part of “Lost Mountain” talked about water flow in the Appalachian region and how mountain top removal has contaminated the drinking water. The movie “Flow” practically highlighted the same topic but instead of with coal mining, it covered how bottled water companies such as nestle are stealing water from streams, not allowing free water flow downstream from where they get their water. I think it was my strongest blog post because I was interested in the topic because I felt for the people that had no water and I was most interested in that topic from watching the movie “Flow”.
In terms of my weakest blog post, I think it had to be one of my “Food Inc.” blogs. I think that this was one of my worst blogs partially because I didn’t like reading about where and how the food I eat is handled. Because of my lack of interest in where my food was coming from, I think I didn’t really think as much into the subject as I should have for the purpose of the class. Even to this day I try to get that movie and what we read out of my head because I want to have a free conscious of eating like a normal person without thinking about whether the food I eat has salmonella or other diseases.
While I was writing my blogs, I tried not to allow the fact that my writing was public to affect what I wrote in my blog posts although I did allow it to affect what type of audience I was writing for. I knew that there were going to be people outside of our class cluster reading our posts so I tried to make my writing as clear and readable as possible. By readable, I mean the terminology that I used in the blogs so that a person that didn’t know of the topic I was discussing could read it and understand what I was talking about. When talking about something that the average person didn’t know much about I tried to explain and define what I was talking about by description or definition.
As far as the reflection of comments posted by me and others, I think that they were all useful for our learning. When I commented on other students blog posts, I tried to include additional facts about the matter as well as whether or not I agreed with their view of the topic. When I read other students comments on my blog posts, I tried to see where they were coming from with what they had to say about my posts. These comments contribute to all of our learning by having more than one input on what others think about our point of view. This allows the person posting the blogs to either feel stronger about their position on a topic or it might persuade them into thinking a different way about it.
Overall it was a satisfying quarter filled with interesting blogging topics. Now I have learned how to start my own blog and what it takes to sustain it. I have learned so much from taking this class about use of the internet, topics of environmental issues, food production issues, and even how to make a movie. This class was an innovated way of learning by utilizing what today’s technology has to offer, blogging. Thanks Dr. R!