Reflection: Blogs

UBC Blogs is the first blog site that I designed and maintained. In the past, I have created blogs, but I never continued to use them. In order to have an effective blog, one must maintain it. UBC Blog has a great community of users that upload and connect on a daily basis. I like that we all have similar goals and use a similar medium to help document how we will get there.

It was quite easy to set up a blog site. The whole layout of the site is organized for you, so all you have to do is personalize it. This makes it easy for the beginner user. In terms of uploading posts and creating pages, I did not find it labour intensive. I found publishing a reflection or a piece of writing was quite straightforward.

In my opinion, what worked well was that after I published a new post, the final product looked polished and professional. When I used wiki sites in the past, it did not have the easy-to-read format. My wikis always looked unfinished. I also like the option to use HTML codes or WYSIWYG format. With HTML codes, I am able to modify the page easily (although I still need to look up what the codes are). However, if I am unsure whether my link works, I can always save my draft and preview the site before publishing. This is great because I like to experiment with the way the page looks before finalizing it.

In the beginning, like with many new technologies, it took some time to familiarize myself with the site. Because UBC Blog connects to a community and has variety of functions for one to use, it can be a little overwhelming. As well, knowing how to write in HTML codes can be a challenge at times, so continual practice is necessary.

I was surprised how much I would like using UBC Blogs. I like seeing my published pages and it surprises how professional it looks. Out of all the technologies I have tried so far, I like blogs the best. In the future, I would want to use them with my classes and for personal use.