Reflections on Blogging

Seven weeks into this module, I doubt that I will continue to keep a blog upon the module’s completion. I certainly feel more comfortable about sharing my thoughts online but I still prefer keeping in touch via email or the telephone.

Initially, blogging to me seemed to be me more of a certain kind of one way communication aimed at simultaneously everyone and no-one. That is to say someone who by chance stumbles across my blog may or may not decide to read it.

Having said that, my opinion that blogging is a particular form of one way communication was proven wrong. Anyone is free to leave comments and thus interact with the author. When Mette and I went to the IET’s annual Mountbatten lecture Walking the Digital Dog and subsequently blogged about it, I was positively surprised to find Roo Reynolds (the guy who gave the lecture) had commented on my (/our) entry (/entries) about the event. In this way we entered into a dialogue with Roo Reynolds, albeit unintentionally. Above all, it gave both us and Roo Reynolds the opportunity to clarify any concerns. This is clearly something that with the utmost probability would not have happened had we not blogged about it. Considering this I can’t deny that blogging is undoubtedly advantageous.

Yet to me blogging still feels like writing a diary. In light of this module then blogging I believe is very appropriate as we’re supposed to use it to document our learning progress. Upon the completion of this module however blogging will serve no purpose for me anymore. So my conservative attitude towards blogging doesn’t seem to have changed much. In my defence though I have never been much of a diary person either!

Perhaps I should also add that even though blogging is not my cup of tea, I do approve of websites such as Milblogging that provide a space for soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq (as well as their families) for example to disseminate their first-hand experiences of the war. I regard these blogs as important to our understanding of warfare as they clearly offer a counterpoint to mainstream media coverage of the war in Iraq.

Another thing (totally unrelated to the above) I would like to mention here with regard to blogging is that blogger has left me severely frustrated at times. I’m perhaps a little squeamish in this respect but one thing I find particularly annoying is that lately after adding pictures or videos the spacing of the text beneath the added item seems to decrease (see Good Web Design/ Bad Web Design and Walking the Digital Dog) making the entry look patchy. I have yet to figure out how to prevent this if that is at all possible. Surprisingly in an earlier entry (My first attempt at blogging…) this didn’t happen (or maybe I found a way to set it right and just can’t remember).