All in all

I’m a little bit quiet..a little shy..and have never been good with words. My paternal grandparents are published writers, but somehow I never got the hang of putting pen to paper.

Needless to say, having to blog was like pulling teeth for me. It was intimidating knowing that other people could read it- people with eyes (!), people with views and far more intelligent opinions.. But once I let go of that (slowly but surely) it did get a little easier to ‘speak up’. I almost had to treat it like a personal diary really. An academic one, that is. There were even times where I simply thought out loud, almost like having a conversation with myself. (I’m not crazy, I promise).

The blogging experience, I have to say, was really worthwhile. And I am actually thankful for this digital ‘nudge’. I can guarantee I would have never otherwise started blogging; I never would have learned to embed or hyperlink or add links, and so on. As a reflective tool, it was extremely useful as it made me really think about the topics covered and also motivated me to read/research further. I am a visual learner so finding relevant videos and presentations on how to use certain digital technologies was really helpful in consolidating my understanding. I did find it difficult to comment on others’ blogs. Similar to the discussion boards on WebCT, I learnt so much from my classmates’ views and posts- I simply felt that I didn’t have anything of value to contribute.

Overall, blogging served as a gateway for me. It opened up the digital world and what it has to offer in our future practice. Having to reflect on course content, reading (and learning from) others’ blogs, receiving lecturer insights, trying out tools, discovering resources, all of these made the unit a success.
All things considered, I started this blog as part of an assessment- but looking back and looking through it, beneath everything (that I thought was) ordinary was something extraordinary. So thank you!