Reflection of the activity

This activity has shown me the value of blogging about my travels in distance education. Reflecting on reading in forums and having discussion is great. The topics are previously decided and topics that spawn off of those are encouraged as well. But, with a blog it is truly, for lack of a better analogy, "your canvas". Sure there are factual accuracies that need to be upheld and citations should always be given. But, it is your space to accomplish what ever you need. I believe this allows a certain amount of personal freedom to create an audience for yourself. By creating an audience for yourself I mean the following: distance education students and professionals may read your blog but, the only ones that will consistently return are the ones that want to hear or related to what you have to say. This provides a level of comfort for me that I enjoy. I have been criticized as writing how I talk, informally. My grammar leaves something to be desired and my formats are probably intolerable for many. But I like to think that when I write anything it has some reflection of who I am and does not just achieve a goal (i.e. fulfilling a requirement).

So I think I've gotten a lot out of this project. I didn't provide updates as concurrently as I should have but still feel I learned something that I should keep up with.

As far as reviewing other blogs, I found it to be inspirational. I got to see what others are personally experiencing and found that I am not alone in many instances. Just reading about what the typical distance education user is like in a text book doesn't always sink it. While learn about distance ed, little do we realize that we are "practicing what we are preaching". And see that most other students are like me, busy or looking for a change in career. Inspires me and makes me feel like I need to push myself harder to keep up. If only there were 28 hours in a day!