I really enjoyed the “Personal Learning Network” (now Personal Work Network 😉 ) my classmates and I had with our blogging, tweeting, and commenting this semester. I was not sure that I would get much out of it at the beginning of the course because I have blogged in other courses and classmates only paid a certain amount attention to each others’ blogs but maybe we had a great class, or maybe it was because the amount of blogging required (even though I unfortunately could not hit the intended quota – 3 classes + working full-time + pregnancy = brain overload) made us all get to know each other, but I found our blogging and tweeting to be very helpful. I feel like my classmates often explained topics I did not fully understand when reading certain articles or broke them down even better than our readings for the rest of us. Also, when classmates expressed confusion about a concept, it was great to see our class reach out with what they thought about it.
I still personally hate blogging – I find it really hard to blog if I can’t think of anything new to add to a conversation when other classmates have already covered it in their blogs, and I also have a hard time being brief which is not ideal for blogging. But this was a valuable experience and I may use this blog in the future to discuss what is going on at my job and maybe share any issues or questions I have about things I read in the news so I hope some of my classmates also update on their lives occasionally.
I also hope to see everyone on Twitter because even though I tweeted a bit here and there prior to this course, building a professional network on Twitter and being able to share links about interesting things happening in our field has been pretty sweet. The few times I interacted with information professionals outside of our classmates this semester was also informative as well as reassuring because I have been a bit intimidated in the past about whether I should join certain conversations as a grad student still learning the ropes, and every interaction I have had has been casual and supportive.
Thanks again for a great semester, though, and see you all around! 🙂