Are blogs the best reflecting tool within a MOOC? #OutstandingMOOC

Last week I enrolled as a participant in the following MOOC (Massive Online Open Course): How to create an outstanding MOOC (more information). I didn’t plan to get involved in another MOOC, basically cause I’m short on time (well, who isn’t?). However, I changed my mind because the organiser isn’t Coursera this time, but HT2, the company behind the Curatr platform. And, best of all, all participants receive the opportunity to create their own MOOC within the Curatr platform.

One of the questions we need to reflect upon is “are blogs a great reflection tool?”.

My answer is Yes and No.

Let me start with the ‘Yes’. Blogs are nowadays still a great place to share reflections. On Twitter you only get 144 characters, and facebook is more a place to share one’s personal information (at least, for me it is). In addition, as I host my own weblog, I can do almost whatever I want on my weblog, protecting myself from any sort of limitation or external influence.

But, I’m afraid the ‘No’ carries more weight. First, being a blogger since 2004, we all know the world out there lost their interest in blogs (RSS what?, RIP Google Reader). Second, blogging requires too much time. particularly during the time I was writing my dissertation, I had no spare time left, nor the courage, to write on my blogs.

So what does work for me?

I still have 3 weblogs I administer (2 personal blogs and 1 group blog) and I’m also a member of a technology podcast. However, when it comes down to it, the action is on Twitter. As a result, I use a social media management system (in my case Hootsuite) that keeps track of ‘my business’. The main limitation of this method are the numbers. You can’t follow just everyone and if too many people engage, the system will filter out only the most recent ones.

In case of this MOOC, I added a search tag on #OutstandigMOOC to Hootsuite. I am aware of the fact I won’t catch everything, but that’s fine for me. I my opinion, Twitter is like a pub. It’s great to follow some discussions, but I don’t feel the need to be involved in each conversation.

See below a screenshot of the #OutstandigMOOC tag/tab in Hootsuite