As many of you 625ers said, reading "A Role for Blogs" on Computers and Composition Online *www.bgsu.edu/cconline/colbyetal/colbyetal.htm* was especially enlightening. The format, of course, is intriguing--definitely not linear and much more creative. On a side note, I didn't like how clicking on blue, "internal" links took me out of the narrative I was reading and into a new page. Did anyone else agree? The essays, if we can call them such, made me even more excited about and committed to this new venture of blogging.
To be honest, Lanette, most of the 20-something posts in this blog were written during the three classes I've had with you. That fact makes me grateful that a professor would introduce us to new media and also disappointed in myself that I have not started doing more "personal" blogging.
But "A Role for Blogs" challenged me in my blogging as well. Brennan Thomas's "section" on being a new, reluctant, adapting blogger talked about writing more personal and less academic blogs and explained that they are still valuable. When I read the examples in Thomas's article, I realized how much I have conformed to the academic/print genre and how much more I need to branch out. I will try.
Then, learning about wikis in Matt Barton's article "The Future of Rational-Critical Debate in Online Public Spheres" was quite interesting. I am looking forward to learning more about them in class even though I do agree with readers who say they are "ugly" (186). For some reason, I sometimes am prejudiced against ugly online formats. Blackboard is the ultimate in ugliness--MSU's version at least seems extremely outdated in terms of graphics, organization, and yes, intuition. I feel the same way about discussion boards I've used in classes. And I like Turnitin.com so much better now that they have updated its looks and navigation so that it is actually current with the rest of the internet.
So back to blogging--the one "educationally" used technology that I like, that is more to me than a class exercise. And sorry for the fragmentation.
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I have to agree with you on "ugly" sites. I personally consider the layout of a site a prime motivator on whether or not I visit it again. I don't think there's any degree of vanity in thinking that, either--certainly, the amount of study that's been put into what makes web sites successful suggests that it's a worthwhile concern to try and make a site as aesthetically appealing as possible.
I see it as kind of a balance--if a site layout is lacking, the information had better be really good, and vice versa. Fortunately, it's a lot easier to make sites look good than it was 5 years ago.
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