Enlightenmnet via Blog

The following is my evaluation of using BLOGGER as a communication tool throughout the semester.


I can remember checking the syllabus on Blackboard at the beginning of the semester.  While reviewing it, I came up to the BLOG assignments section and first became curious and then enthralled - at the time I was already familiar with social media and therefore became excited about the possibilities it could bring to the classroom.  In my mind, I pictured an interactive on-line classroom - a community where my classmates and I enjoyed in wholesome conversation and discussed class topics and homework.  A major reason why I chose to enroll at Baruch was for its networking opportunities.  Now, my entire class and I were provided the opportunity to connect with each other, learn about management, and perhaps collectively do something great!

Our first Blog assignment was to post a profile about ourselves and to include a photo - so that we could get to know one another (we were required to comment on other classsmates' blogs).  For me, this proved to be an effective means of meeting and getting to know my piers since it provided an "icebreaker" for conversation.  By reviewing my piers' blogs, I found some personalities that I was naturally attracted to and thus saw myself as being friends with.  Looking back, this component empowered me to keep discovering new personalities and making new friends, then and throughout the entire semester...now there is a group of about ten of us who  collaborate together to make study guides (hey who's got chapters 16 & 17 anyway?!), eat chicken kabobs and hummus together at a no name restaurant, and enjoy drinks together at Fitz's after class.  If that's not "something great," I don't know what is.
I particularly enjoyed discussing my in-class experiences with my piers via the blog community.  Looking back,  a recurring learning process theme that I repeatedly experienced throughout the semester was: first I became aware of some management process and how I behaved from a managerial perspective via the class-exercise, next I compared it to myself and reflected on how efficiently I had been a manager up-to-date, and somehow through blogging, I became willing to implement what is required of me to become a successful manager.  The "follow-up" Blog assignments forced me to really sit down and be brutally honest (since this was to be published of course) with my behavior and decisions during the class assignments.  This learning process, which I'm calling "Kurpis-Enlightenment via Blog," is a viable means of delivering an efficient learning experience.
However, there were some drawbacks that I did experience while participating in this "new" learning process.  Each blog topic was due on a particular date.  We were then required to comment on three other classmates' blogs within, usually, three days of the due date.  Since I preferred to usually get the assignment completed as soon as possible, I found myself repeatedly commenting only on those students who were operating on the same early "blogging schedule" as I was throughout the semester.  Also, although I did really think of it as the beginning of the semester, perhaps because I could not have know how much work it was to entail, I now feel that the managing of a blog should count for more than only 20% of the final grade (we get 5% for usually a 20 minute research study).
In conclusion, I would be delighted to continue in on-line discussion with my classmates after the semester is finished, however, I fear that without a common goal, and us all being college students-all with different paths, time will simply not allow for such a sophisticated online discussion.  I will stay in contact though with those friends that I have met through this class and do share common goals and personalities with...friends and future professionals that I most likely would have met but never got the opportunity to know.  Keep it Kurpis!  I am grateful to be challenged so sincerely, personally, and brilliantly through this process.