Conclusion

Before I began this class when I thought of blogs I thought of an online diary. The biggest thing I learned from my experience is just that blogs are resourceful and informational and there’s a lot more behind them than just personal opinions. I think using blogging has overall been a very beneficial experience for me. I was new to blogging, having never done something like this before in my personal life. But I think that blogging really helped my group to connect better and bring good ideas and information together to produce a good presentation.
From blogging I learned how connected it allowed me to be with online resources and group members. I learned that it’s a very simple concept and well received by most. I’ve found that I haven’t officially been “following” any blogs in the past but I have referred to them before and they have been very helpful to me. I think getting experience blogging and seeing how it can help me, has influenced how I will utilize it in the future.
I liked the blog for many reasons. It was expressive and versatile. I was put in a group where I didn’t know half of my group mates and barely knew anything about our topic. This blog intrigued me to learn more, to keep reading articles until I found the one I liked the most to post. It was also so easy; I could look up articles pretty much anywhere and what whatever I felt about them and post it for my group. It was an easy concept, even for a first time blogger and easily updateable. I liked the feedback we could give and receive and throw around ideas to each other.
Overall I liked the blog but it did have some qualities I didn’t like. My biggest problem was remembering to do the blog weekly, since I had to create another email account that wasn’t my primary account, so I didn’t get emails notifying me if other group mates put up new posts. It would often slip my mind or I wouldn’t remember to do it until the last minute. I also found many of my groups post topics were similar and repetitive. It didn’t seem to cause any problems for our project, I personally just got tired of reading the same things, and I ran out of feedback for the same issues. I also didn’t like the informality of the whole thing. I felt like I should have been more grammatically correct and concerned about format but my responses looked the same as everyone else’s. If I could have improved anything I would have preferred more structure with the blog.
I think blogging will be apart my future, I think that blogs will help me stay informed with current issues. I think blogs are also a very good way to network, I learned more names and concepts through reading other peoples blogs. I only really explored food industry blogs but I know there are blogs for all topics and I know that they will benefit my future in many ways.

The blog I found that I might want to follow is called Going Green DC. It is a blog that highlights some different ways Washington DC is going green. I found this really interesting because I’m from an area of Maryland that is only about 30 minutes outside of DC and I think this could help keep me aware of what’s going on around me, especially in a more advanced city such as DC. The blog covers issues from farmers markets, organic beer and cocktails, to local restaurants, and green weddings.
http://goinggreendc.net/