Final Analysis

Normally, I have chocolate when I write my blogs, but because today is my final blog I have switched to cinnamon rolls. I now see the error of my ways - cinnamon rolls are much better than chocolate for writing creative blogs!

Overall, I have enjoyed creating and updating my blog. I had to set up a wiki for my other course, and we've also used wikis in this course, so I feel I can make a good comparison between the two. Wikis seem to have a lot of options in terms of posting pages, and links, and even having separate pages within the same space. For instance, in my wiki for my other course, I have a main page with links to my journal as well as other assignments. However, for our blog, I have one main page that everyone can access. Based on my own usage, I appreciate having one page to go to. I feel that sometimes with wikis, you can miss some of the information because there are so many options. Also, if it is a new user like me, if the pages are not properly linked than it can be hard to find information.

I like to color code information, and make things colorful (as much as possible). This is probably not important to anyone else, but it has the potential to sway my decision if the color scheme is ugly! Both tools have the ability to color coordinate words, and backgrounds. The blog is a little bit more limited in terms of some of the colors and backgrounds but I can overlook this because I appreciate the straight forward organization of blogs. I also like that a blog will automatically list posts in reverse chronological order, and automatically categorize posts by month. I purposely made my wiki posts in reverse order, but could have easily done it another way. The blog seems to be the clear winner for me, because it allows me to be creative but also presents the information in a clear and concise manner with very little effort.

I think creating blogs is a great way to introduce new technology methods to distance education students. It is also nice to use another method of learning outside of Webtycho. By using the blog, we're showing that we understand how to use the tool, and it offers us another medium to express our thoughts on the class. Also, because not as many classmates are reviewing our blog, it might lead to more freedom of expression because of the lack of fear of rejection and criticism. I also think in terms of assignments, it was a nice break to write papers for some of the assignments and then write the blog and wiki definitions in between. It divides the learning process a little and gives us a couple different modes to showcase what we have learned in the course.

I hope creating blogs is kept as part of the class assignments. It is a great way to express what we have learned from the course and it's also fun. Eva and I have been corresponding a lot in the Webtycho conferences together, so once we were paired up for the blogs, we've been able to expand on our discussions and gain more insight into each other's thoughts and experiences.