Reading Week 1 – Why do we blog?

After a bit of printing and highlighting I have now been able to understand why the use of blog’s at RMIT is so important to my studies.

Blogs can be used like a journal or diary as an educational tool that allows us to reflect on ideas or to record progress in certain activities or creation exercises.

I think that it is so important that I continue to use my media blog throughout my degree as it is a public document that showcases my folio of work. It also enables me to become a part of the “larger community” (Miles, pg. 67) whenever I contribute/others comment on my work.

Blogs allow for anyone to become the “publisher” (Miles, pg. 66) rather than an “author of a single or even a series of web pages”. It allows me to have a public space where I can write whatever I want within reason, having a balance between a scholarly and conversational voice.

It’s vital that in this day and age, we are taught about using online spaces like blogs. We are moving towards an incredibly technological age where nearly everything is now online. Keeping a blog allows me to develop my online media skills and potentially gives me a leg up against those who don’t have the same skill set as me.

I am not 100% sure as to the direction that I want this blogroll to go in as I am interested in a lot of things. I absolutely love music, theatre and travel to name a few things, so I am hoping that my blog will head in this direction. I am also heavily involved in social media, so I will be writing a little bit about my experiences online as they will relate to my Networked Media class.

Week 1 Reading: Miles, Adrian. Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online]. Screen Education, No. 43, 2006: 66-69.