I was completely unfamiliar with blogging before commencing this course. I had a brief idea of how it worked but had never experimented with it before or used a blogging platform. I am enjoying it so far, however it is a little more complex than I initially thought it would be. Creating content that was both interesting to me and to my potential readers was my first issue. I struggled to understand how I could incorporate academic posts and personal posts on the same webpage. As the course has progressed I learnt that blogs can be categorised and organised though a range of techniques.
I have been writing since I was very young. The difference being, all of my writing has been in personal diaries/journals before this course. It is very confronting and somewhat daunting to start creating content that is accessible to anyone at anytime. It definitely makes a difference in my writing when I am consciously aware of a potential audience. I feel a little restricted and limited on what I can write as it is not just for me personally. It does however open my eyes to the exciting opportunities of online writing. There is an entire online community out there that I endeavour to become much more involved in.
Hypertext is something I was also unfamiliar with, however I have been incorporating it into many of my blog entries. As I am writing about places I have visited, I have been linking readers to further information in my blog posts. This alters the structure of my text as it encourages readers to go on further to alternate websites.
Through the use of hypertext I am also practicing network literacy. Network literacy is a completely new concept to me and is still something I perceive as relatively complex. A major component of being network literate relates to participating and involving yourself in an online community. Adrian Miles’ article summarises successful network literacy as contributing and creating on equal parts. ‘Through such sharing, the distinction between consuming and creating content dissolves, so unlike print literacy, in network literacy we become peers in the system, and indeed to be ‘good’ at network literacies is to contribute as much as it is to consume’ (Miles 2007) By linking to other sites/articles/informative pages I am participating in interactivity and encouraging my readers to explore further.
Widgets were much harder for me to incorporate on my blog. I had a lot of difficulty with firstly trying to understand how to actually get them on the sidebar and also finding widgets that would be appropriate and relevant for my blog/content.
I have learnt that there is a lot more to blogging than just writing and creating blog posts. There is a variety of techniques that need to be implemented in order to get the most out of the online community. Interactivity and network literacy are both integral parts of maintaining an online identity. This first part of the semester for me personally has primarily been finding my way around the blogosphere and learning about how it all works. I am excited to delve further into blogging now and work on creating better content.
Miles, Adrian. Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge [online]. Screen Education, No. 45, 2007: 24-30. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=805521387210748;res=IELAPA> ISSN: 1449-857X. [cited 11 Apr 16].
Kroski, E. 2008, “Widgets”, School Library Journal, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 41.
lauren joy 