superblog

The English 101 class is required for college freshman and it is strictly a writing class. Although I was aware of this I had already prepared myself for everything we were instructed to do in this class throughout the semester, except for the blogging. I personally dislike the blogs. I also believe that you would get more participation from the class if it was something on Facebook instead. Most college students are addicted to Facebook, so it would be more convenient. Regardless, In order to better the participation using blogger, I suggest making improvements regarding the frequency, the timing and also the groupings.

I personally believe that the frequency of the blogs should be changed. I feel as if I would have completed many more blogs if we wouldn’t have had one due every week! Just constantly doing one every week overwhelmed me from the very beginning.  Instead of having a post due every Wednesday and comments due every Friday, you should spread it out a bit more.  Try making a post due every other week and the comments due the following week.  There is a greater chance that the students will get overwhelmed and discouraged with having to complete a blog post each week.

Timing on the other hand, is a much bigger factor that should go into consideration when revising the blogging for the class of the next semester. College students are some of the biggest procrastinators. Therefore, instead of making something, such as the comments, due at midnight every Friday, it would be better if it was due on Thursday at midnight.  With college students, especially freshman, constantly procrastinating they wait until the last day they have to complete the assignment. Although, when things are due after hours on a Friday, there is a good chance it will not get done.  As soon as their last class ends on Fridays, most students do not pick of a book , or any type of school work for that matter, until Sunday evening when they are trying to complete all their work for the upcoming week .

                Lastly, if the grouping were different more honest comments would get completed. I think that for upcoming classes, you should wait to assign the blogs until about the third week of school so people can get to know one another a little better. Then you should allow your students to decide their own groups.  With you choosing the groups are not always familiar with their group member. Therefor they do not know one another’s personalities. If the students were grouped with people they consider friends they would be more honest when commenting on the blog post. Often times friends are more straight forward with one another than they would be with a stranger.

                All in all this was not a very good experience I had with blogging. It was the first time I had done something on this sort of site and it gets pretty difficult when attempting to follow other classmates. Although, if you do plan to continue using this site, I do suggest that you change how often you will have your classes complete a blog post, how much time you will give them to complete the post, and also who they will be instructed to comment on. These changes will definitely give you better results.