To vlog or not to vlog?

Technology and I have a love hate relationship. I have done multi media projects and had an amazing time and been very proud, but I have also worked on projects where I just want to rip my hair out and it takes everything inside of me not to break my computer. It seems more and more classes are going to the vlog for responses instead of the blog. I actually had to do one earlier today for an online class. Personally I don’t like the vlog, I have a hard time articulating my thoughts through spoken word and then I have to awkwardly look at myself and listen to my awful voice after, it sucks! I like Shipka’s idea of letting us chose how we want to say things. Sometimes I would prefer to write a quick one page response instead of having to do the video response. I have also experienced making a website for a project and I have had a lot of fun with that, but that’s because wix is a cite that is easy for me to use, but for some people that don’t like computers or website creators why not let them make a poster or draw something. I like the idea of letting students chose, especially in college Shipka’s piece says “Students have a much richer imagination for what might be accomplished in the course than our journals have yet even begun to imagine, let alone to address.” (282) So why not let students use their imagination, I know personally if I’m excited by a project I will work 10x harder because it’s something I care about. In Fosen’s Rhetoric class my group and I decided to go outside the box and actually make a board game to show how we comprehended Rhetoric and we had so much fun working on it that we put a lot more time and energy into it then we would have if we would have only made a video describing how we understood rhetoric. And while teachers will mostly get students who just do the standard like me writing the blog it’s nice to know we have the options!