21st Century Perspectives on War: A Concept as Old as Time

Overall, I would say the edublog experience was positive.  However, I did have minor technological difficulties.  A great thing is to be able to use new and improving technology.  Had it not been for this class, I probably never would have had an experience to use edublogs.  However, in the future if the choice is to use edublog or blackboard, I would defiantly choose blackboard because students are more familiar with the site and experiences less technological difficulties.

The actual web site was easy to create and navigate.  We were required to create a complete blogroll, a link to google reader, visible RSS, and have readable font and pleasing aesthetics.  The entire process took less then thirty minutes even though I had never used the program before.  The directions were extremely clear and easy to follow.

I did experience some technological difficulties when the time came to post our first three posts.  Being the normal college student, of course I waited until Tuesday afternoon to begin to write any of my first three posts.  Procrastinating was a big mistake.  I write all of my blogs on Microsoft Word First (so I have access to spell check, not my strong point).  Once I had the posts completed, I tired to log onto edublog and each time it told me there was a service error.  Hoping the problem was my computer, I quickly drove to the school and found myself waiting in line in Henry Hall for a computer.  Once I had access to a computer I had the same technical difficult. The only cure for this problem was to delete my old URL and create a new one. Needless to say, I learned my lesson and did not procrastinate on the next several assignments and made sure to have them uploaded and published at least a week in advance.        

The actual writing process was a success and at most times interesting. I wrote a few posts that were particularly interesting and easy to relate material in class to outside resources.  My first was “Gender Roles During War Time”.  The post described the gender stereotypes relating them to past and present wars.  Another post I enjoyed writing was “As A Society Have We Become Immune To The Concept of War”.  It was enlightening to research the difference in societies general approach to war between the Iraq War and World War II.  My most recent post, “Roll of Faith and War” was my favorite one to write.  I grew up in a very religious family.  While I am proud of my faith and religion, I find myself questioning things daily after researching and writing the post. I found I was not the only individual who had these questions and assumptions.

We were also required to write at least ten comments to our classmates posts these are the URL’s for my comments

1)      http://tumac.edublogs.org/2008/04/02/good-morning-vietnam/#respond

2)      http://tumac.edublogs.org/2008/04/02/good-morning-vietnam/#respond

3)      http://palmeral.edublogs.org/2008/02/26/remembering-the-past/#respond

4)      http://ullreyg.edublogs.org/2008/03/26/since-you-went-away/

5)      http://ullreyg.edublogs.org/2008/02/03/on-death-and-dying/

6)      http://mcdonaln.edublogs.org/2008/02/06/hard-times/#respond

7)      http://whitepe.edublogs.org/2008/02/06/looking-both-ways/

8)      http://tubbsd.edublogs.org/2008/02/06/the-cost-of-war/#comments

9)      http://kerijaynes.uniblogs.org/2008/03/26/describing-realities-through-literature/#comments

10)  http://derekvp.uniblogs.org/2008/04/06/unfinished-business/#respond

Overall, I really enjoyed edublog.  I am an extremely shy person and find it difficult to participate in class discussions.  I found that this was an easy way for me to communicate my opinions with my classmates and have a chance to give them positive and negative feed back on their posts.