BLOGS!!!

My last blog . . . it's bitter sweet. I definitely enjoyed the online blog more than I could have ever enjoyed a written journal. However, there were times it was inconvenient. One specific incident was over Thanksgiving break. The internet was down and I had just remembered that a blog was due so I had to drive around town looking for a wifi spot in Sioux Falls. It wasn't hard to do, just inconvenient. Another thing I enjoyed about these blogs were the ones in which we were given more freedom to blog about whatever we want. The subject specific ones were hit or miss with me. In the future I would recommend a mandatory interaction between the class. Over the semester I posted on a few other peers blogs but a conversation never developed. I would like to see this class concept developed much more. It would improve class participation and also help students with developing deeper thoughts in their post. Overall, the online journal was fun and educational. Great idea Lindsay!

Reviews

Overall, I thought the reviews were not much more helpful then the other styles of peer review we've used. They were different, but the people that review either are afraid to lay out what is wrong with the paper or don't know how to improve it. I believe it is that people are afraid to point out mistakes, or in other words, they don't want to hurt anyones feelings. Myself, I try to find errors and make a point to point them out, but when I'm not getting any feedback it's hard to want to give any advice. Perhaps in the upper English classes the students will be more willing to give helpful peer reviews, but this is not the case in our class. I'm unsure how to fix this problem. The peer reviews aren't working because the students are not committing to the exercise and this might be a problem that teachers cannot change. I would rather have essays reviewed by the writing center or the teacher from the get-go.