Thursday, November 20, 2003

Should a learning journal be public?

This is from my write up of activity 4, which is about setting up the blog in the first place, and my reflections on the use of blogs for Learning Journals.

"Should a learning journal be public?

Issues such as confidentiality and inhibition could mean that certain kinds of personal reflection can be included in a private LJ which couldn't in a public one. But writing for a perceived audience may improve quality or motivate to keep up to date. I find it useful to be able to share some of my writings, such as "my impression of jellyOS after a few days".

Some blogs allow others people to make comments on your writings. This turns the writer into a kind of interactive columnist, with feedback and discussions going on around the articles. Mine doesn't do that, and I suspect that this could make it harder to write in a spontaneous and uninhibited fashion. It's just a little bit too public for this specific application. Fine for internet 'celebrities' though.

Actually, I think it might be a great idea to set up a private blog with a comment facility, because this would allow me to read back over old thoughts and make comments myself, on my own past reflections, in the light of later experience. Yes, that seems very much in the spirit of the reflective practitioner philosophy. You could have a dialogue with yourself telescoping forward through time.

voice recorder

Another idea I have had is in response to the question I posed in my blog about mornings, afternoons and evenings. I decided it would be most useful to get one of those tiny digital voice recorders, so that I can 'jot down' any thoughts, information, questions, worth recording when I'm away from a computer. It may even be possible to upload the soundfiles rather than have to type in a transcript. I'm looking through eBay to see what's available."

What do you think?

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