Reflection on the Blogging Experience

1. I used the course blog in a few ways. It was useful to create a professional line of communication between myself and some of my classmates. The feedback that I received as a result of the blog posts was useful, because it contributed to my learning and growth as a school counselor.     

2. I would have to say that my experience with the course blog was both beneficial and time consuming. While the responses from my classmates were useful, it was difficult to always make time to create a blog post.

3. For me, the following stands out in my mind: it was interesting and enjoyable to read my classmates posts about their thoughts in regards to their experiences at their school sites and other related topics about the practicum class.  

4. Reading the blog posts from my classmates and receiving their feedback are the aspects of this course blog that stand out in my mind. For instance, the cyberbullying post was insightful, since we had the chance to share our thoughts about the subject matter and about the impact that it has on students.

5. The main advantage to using the course blog was that it allowed me to communicate with my peers about modern topics and experiences, as opposed to the traditional journaling activity. However, I think that this course blog was more time consuming in comparison to journaling on our own on the Blackboard site about the practicum experience.     

6. Initially, I was looking forward to the entire practicum class and school site experience. It was overwhelming because of the time constraints and amount of work that I needed to complete for this practicum class. In addition, because I have been really busy with this class, work, hours at the school sites, and the homework; the semester has flown by for me.      

7. It seems that everything was jammed into only one school semester. I think that it would have been more beneficial if the practicum course was spread out over the course of two semesters. Spending one semester at the elementary school and the other time period at the high school would allow practicum students to gain a better experience from both of the school levels. In regards to the course blog, there are a few thoughts that stand out for me. For instance, as I mentioned earlier, the cyberbullying post was interesting to read. The classroom guidance lesson post was useful because we had to chance to share various lessons that could be used in the classroom with the students. In addition, one of my favorite blog posts was the magic wand post, because it was enjoyable to read about the various ideas from my classmates.

8. I have become more open minded about using blogging as a source of professional communication.

9. I don’t think that my personal values and assumptions were influenced by this practicum course blog.     

10. I think that the blog did enhance reflection because we had a chance to expand upon each other’s ideas and thoughts about our own experiences at the school sites and about the practicum course.

11. Honesty, I have mixed feeling about the entire blogging experience. While the post and feedback from my classmates was useful, I didn’t expect it to be as time consuming as it turned out to be for me. In addition, I didn’t assume that we would have to discuss certain topics. Instead, I expected the course blog to be more of reflection activity.   

12. The only thing that I found to be challenging about the blogging experience was that it was time consuming.

13. If I could make a suggestion about using the blog in a future course, I would suggest that it be more of reflection blog assignment.   

14. Yes, I believe that I have shared everything that was significant with reference to my overall practicum class experience.