The end!

Here are some of my reflections on my final project, as well as the class as a whole, for this final (!!!) blog post:

• Digital mediums really make you think about how your information will be visually presented (which is a very good thing!): For my final project, I wrote an essay about the use of blogs in the undergraduate writing classroom which I ultimately presented as a WordPress blog. My decision to do this was motivated by two things: first, I was writing about blogging so it made sense to present my writing through the same format, and second, I originally wanted my project to be as readable as a webtext but I have nonexistent coding skills. Therefore, I chose a WordPress theme that is (I hope) easy to read large amounts of text on. Also, I ultimately decided to use a static home page with hyperlinks to each individual section of my essay, each of which are presented as individual blog posts. I thought this would help to present an introduction to my argument from which page a reader can choose to read any/all of my sections. A reader can see what order my essay is organized in, but they can, if they wish, read the sections out of order. Also, I liked that the blogging format allowed me to include some images/gifs throughout my essay–this helped both to break up continuous streams of text for a reader as well as contributed to a more informal and generally accessible tone. Similarly, the WordPress tagging feature allowed me to not only categorize my posts but also to insert some occasional humorous asides (well, at least humorous to me…).

• Digital projects allow for a lot of individual creativity: As is evident by all of our projects this semester, the digital format encompasses many options beyond the text-based seminar paper and thus many options for creativity. It was really interesting to see not only what other students decided to focus on, but how they decided to present their projects. Not only were the topics of projects great, but the medium through which they were presented were extremely creative all around.

• I want to work digital projects into my own classes in the future: After seeing the potential for creativity that a digital project can provide, I hope I’ll be able to include a digital project into future classes that I’ll teach. I think certain students would really benefit from the opportunity to present their essays in a form other than the typed paper, and I hope I can find a way to make this possible.

• I want to better incorporate blogging into my future classes: I chose to research blogging in the undergraduate writing classroom primarily because I had been using a course blog in my WRT 102 section this semester but did not feel that I was using the platform to its full potential. Through my research for my final project, I found a lot of great ideas for using the blog to increase levels of student engagement on a week to week basis. While I didn’t talk about this specifically in my essay, one thing I really want to explore in the future is using more creative blog post prompts in order to encourage students to think outside of the box and bring in more from their own majors and personal experience.

• Memes are pretty great!: While I was already a big fan of memes before this class, I really want to be able to work memes into future WRT classes because I think it can be a great way for students to engage with writing skills in a way that is potentially more accessible and enjoyable for many students.

 

And with that, I’m off to: