rosebud

I think I’m beginning to understand the purpose of the blog ‘exercise’ for transient spaces. Funny that it’s taken me all semester to get here. But I began with the idea that they were purposeless, meaningless indulgent and mostly incomprehensible jingoistic (sic) fluff. It’s hard to move forward when that is ones starting point. BUT, in my ignorance and out of my negativity I have been very gently welcomed into a community – of sorts.

I realise that Jenny Weight wanted us to discover one another through our blogs. Some of you have done that with ease and others hardly at all. I would like to argue that those people that began communicating via their blogs (comfortably) had prior knowledge of each other. It stands to reason. Perhaps they were in a class together, met in the bookshop, shared a desk in the library or just sat next to each other in a lecture. This brief encounter breaks down barriers. This ‘meeting’ makes it easier (less awkward) when one is asked to communicate or talk to each other in class or via the internet. It was expected that the blog might make meeting and talking easier. For me this was not true. I struggled on feeling hopeless, confused and alone. I did not feel part of a community. I felt like an outsider. In class I spent most of my time trying to keep my head above water and not drown in a virtual sea of hypertext.

Ever so slowly, lectures began to change. In the final few weeks of tutorials jenny encouraged us to have a conversation, move away from our screens and talk to each other. Immediately (for me) things began to shift with the class dynamic. Warren, Kristin, Tammy, David became ‘real’ people who I felt I could talk to. They told me about their documentaries, I visited their blogs wanting to get to know them better etc. Maybe a meeting with another person makes the sense of community stronger. Is a virtual community less cohesive and less influential because of it’s transient nature?
In truth, I have visited so many blogs that I am numb to their rantings. Blogs are less significant if you have no insight, no reason to be visiting a blog other than virtual voyeurism. Even the more worthy sites fall into the trap of ‘infotainment’ via the web, and I find all the bells whistles, columns, buttons, pictures flash, QuickTime distracting. But when I KNEW someone, his or her blog immediately became more interesting. It allowed me to get to know them better and would make class time more informative and interesting because we could talk about the things they had written about.
If I understood that I could learn as much from my classmates as I could from my lecturers I would have embraced my blog and used it as a learning tool – at least for the purpose of this subject. Sadly I didn’t get it. If I could do it all again transient spaces would be a very different experience. In these last dying moments of the subject classmates are offering me advice and suggesting ways I could solve problems. At the beginning of transient spaces I didn’t feel I could bother classmates with my questions. I felt overwhelmed by the very nature of a virtual diary and could not settle on an idea. Unfortunately my bog is testament to this. It swings haphazardly between the personal and the observational and the banal. Ironically, my blog is everything I dislike about blogs. If I was doing a self-assessment on my blog it might read ‘could do better’ or ‘what are you trying to say here?’ or ‘come and see me after class’.

The range of blogs and the types are so varied even within our school community. Can a blog really be anything other than your own thoughts? And if so, how can a blog be assessed? Surely it is subjective whether a blog is good or bad? Isn’t it possible that the most well researched and informative blogs have no track back and no comments, therefore rendering them worthless? Is that why our blogs are assessed via the technical part of the exercise? But where does this leave the content? For me, the exercise had to be more than technical. I suspect most students would agree.

Some students have used their blogs to disseminate lectures and discuss personal theories that relate to lectures. But other class members are on a different track and use their blog as a virtual space to promote, publish and enhance their work and employment potential. Some blogs seem to exist only to fulfil the requirements of this subject.

Nothing, it seems, is right or wrong in the world of blogging. Anything goes. It is a virtual minefield of virtual tunnels full of virtual darkness with virtually no criticisms spirally out of virtual control.

cars

http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3112394/blog2/?p=37