Creation and Development of Blogspot

http://khaingzah25peacelynn.blogspot.com/
(the blog address on my thoughts on education)

As my EDS 227 class' project, in September, 2008, I created my above blog to develop my educational thoughts with the well-instructed guidance of Bobby, and Dorothy's technological help. First I would like to mention the ingredients of my blog. Right now, my blog postings includes the labels of Berea College's Education Program Goals -- a community of inquiry understanding subject matter, authentic learning, the foundations of education, cultural diversity, technology, and professional development -- as well as the labels of my thoughts on reflection, philosophy, lesson planning for scribbling stage, and ramp and ball. My recent postings are longer and much more deep in thoughts than the earlier ones, though they all share the procedure of describing the attachments, reflecting on my learning through these attached experiences, and connecting the entries with the representative labels. In addition, my blog has been connected with my classmates' under the name "Followers"; in this way, we can share our blogging styles and our thoughts on education.


The creation of my blog was not that difficult, despite some troubles with my new postings in the beginning. Honestly, due to the initial adversity, I was a little bit reluctant to explore my blogging at first. But Bobby's encouragement to take risks rang in my ears very often, so I pushed myself to be navigating in my blog -- playing with the different choices of templates, tagging my photo, and writing up my profile. Once I managed to manipulate the technology almost as I wished, I felt capable, and fast -- I started feeling like my thoughts raced with the speed of the technological advances. However, there were also times that I took technology for granted, so I ended up feeling miserable with its occasional unreliableness. In one of my postings named "Learning with brain and heart," I added my three attachments and wrote up my long well-thought description, reflection, and connection -- the typing of my reflective thoughts took me about 3 hours. Then after licking "Publish Post," I discovered the end of my world. Probably because of the Internet connection's unequal speed, and the long time spent typing up, most part of my entry was not saved at all. As a result, I could not view my posting in my blog. There was no translation for my dismay. Very frustrated, I wrote up my entry again -- but this time at the Microsoft Word, reminding very often to save whatever I finished. I did learn that technology could be uncooperative and lead your frustration, despite its handiness and incredible speed for the users of knowledge and experiments. Moreover, my blogging has helped me learn to get help from capable hands when I am in a unknown territory of technology. During my last posting "Creativity for Learning," I did lots of experiments with my attachments that I used from a weblink, and part of a photo. First I copied the poster of Creative Writing Workshop for Children, and also cut only my painting "Expression" of the current posted photo. Then I pasted them at my Word document, and wrote up my entry. But when I posted the attached pictures and writing, only the writing appeared. After several trials, I learned that my attempt was in vain. So I tried to be flexible with the whole photo attached pointing out my focused picture. Also I went to the URL that I got the poster and saved the poster as a picture -- it worked. Then frustratingly I saw that my posting did not show up although I again and again pasted my entry and clicked Publish Post. I also tried the refresh button. At last I gave up on my unsuccessful attempt, and decided to email to Dorothy for her suggestions. She replied to me to try out Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer. It worked! Do you imagine that I have sometimes wished for only Word typing and Saved files, which is my more comfortable territory? Thinking of this wish now, I questioned myself, "Don't you think that people in the past were also frustrated with the Word -- perhaps forgetting to save the file before their expertise with the use? I do imagine my precessdors experience the same as I am now with blogspot. Afterall, don't I feel pleased with my pictures and thoughts on my blog, and sharing them with my friends? Yes, of course! Do I also feel more and more confident with the use of blogspot after all these risks and experiments? The answer would be nothing, but yes.

I include this entry under the label of technology because my blog creation and learning through its development has helped build my confidence in the ability to exploit technological tools. So as a teacher I can support in return my students' employment of technology for their skills' development and better understandings of subject matter. Definitely, I would encourage my young students to create their own blogspots as a reinforcing tool for their own learning, and for the expanded web learning among the classmates as a community. Like my blogging as a class' important project extend my technological knowledge and skills, I am very positive that blogging will bring the same benefits to young students. Also I will try to embrace any better technological tools in the future; my risk-taking experience with this blogging has told me, "I can do!" I have also learned not to hesitate to get help when necessary :).