Today, I attended a blogging course at CSC with a few of my colleagues. Have been looking forward to this course as we've been toying with the idea of creating a blog as a tool to reach out to our target audience, and with the ramblinglibrarian being the trainer, I thought he could offer a good perspective about why choose blogging and also share his experience with blogging from an organization's point of view, esp a govt org.
But sad to say, although the course slides are interesting and he shared a lot of info about blogs and blog-related technology, I felt that the course did not meet our expectations of truly understanding blogging and how we can use it as an effective tool of communication.
Now, i'm not finding fault with the trainer, nor the course content, but rather what 80% of the participants came to the course for. When it was revealed that we will not learn how to blog, there was a loud dismay from most of the participants. I turned to Vic and gave him a look of amusement. despite the trainer repeating time and again that blogging is something we have to experiment with and he's not there to teach us how to blog, the 2-hr session was often interrupted with questions like "Can you show me how to get to that webpage?", "How do I post a video on my blog?", "How do I create a blog?".
Well, looking at the profile of the participants, and that it's the school holidays now, and the fact that 80% of them raised their hands as a show of those who have never blogged before, it's half-expected that the course will go into the direction of "how to create a blog". After all, how do you get them to understand blogging and the means of blogs as a tool of communication when they get bewildered by the very first step of getting started?
In any case, I can't say that the course is a waste of time. The trainer did widen the perspective about blogging and what it can do, and how others are using blogs to communicate. It certainly got me thinking about Why we are considering creating a blog and How we are going to present the blog to our audience. Time to kill some brain cells....
But sad to say, although the course slides are interesting and he shared a lot of info about blogs and blog-related technology, I felt that the course did not meet our expectations of truly understanding blogging and how we can use it as an effective tool of communication.
Now, i'm not finding fault with the trainer, nor the course content, but rather what 80% of the participants came to the course for. When it was revealed that we will not learn how to blog, there was a loud dismay from most of the participants. I turned to Vic and gave him a look of amusement. despite the trainer repeating time and again that blogging is something we have to experiment with and he's not there to teach us how to blog, the 2-hr session was often interrupted with questions like "Can you show me how to get to that webpage?", "How do I post a video on my blog?", "How do I create a blog?".
Well, looking at the profile of the participants, and that it's the school holidays now, and the fact that 80% of them raised their hands as a show of those who have never blogged before, it's half-expected that the course will go into the direction of "how to create a blog". After all, how do you get them to understand blogging and the means of blogs as a tool of communication when they get bewildered by the very first step of getting started?
In any case, I can't say that the course is a waste of time. The trainer did widen the perspective about blogging and what it can do, and how others are using blogs to communicate. It certainly got me thinking about Why we are considering creating a blog and How we are going to present the blog to our audience. Time to kill some brain cells....
1 comment:
Hi, sorry that you felt the course didn't meet your expectations. I agree that it's probably the course participants that skewed the course towards a more "How to Blog" angle.
I had read Ivan's post about the first time he conducted this course, and it seemed more fruitful and in line with our expectations. http://ramblinglibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/02/post-course-reflections-session-1-w-h.html#links
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