Week 1

Reflection

This is definitely not my first blogging experience and it certainly won’t be the last. Back in 2006, I started blogging without really knowing what the word meant. It was rather a new lexical item in my vocabulary as I was learning about the new trends in technology. In fact, I first learned about blogging when I joined EVO (The Electronic Village Online) a free online course sponsored by TESOL.  It was then that I really acquired the basic skills and experience in blogging. I even managed to create my own blogs and published my own products online for an audience that ranged from immediate family to the entire world. I helped some of my colleagues to start their blogs and I even created some class blogs for my students. Back then, however, very few students had access to the Internet especially I the school where I teach because it is located in an under served neighborhood where they had other priorities than computers and Internet. In addition, the quality of the connection was so poor that it was very frustrating and time-consuming to upload and download material online. Feedback was not that encouraging either as very few people (students mainly) commented. Then, little by little I began to lose interest in the experience as it was a little too early in my teaching context to engage in such an endeavor. Also, new trends in social media started to emerge gaining field over blogging. After six years, my blogs are still online but missing some embedded items such as images, audio … Now that I started this course, the hook for a new blogging experience seems to be bigger since the potential readers share nearly the same interests and motivations. Apart from Blogger.com, there are other platforms such as wordpress.com that offer similar functionalities but blogger is my favorite because it is easy to use especially now as that there is a wider range of very attractive templates. We can also personalize the design of the blog to give it an original and look if time permits. I am definitely looking forward to start the experience and see what the other participants come up with. 

Good luck to everyone.