Blogging experience & online collaboration: A reflective summary

I can summarise my blogging experience and online collaboration under the following reflections points:

What went well:

1. I improved my ability to complete the setup and re-design my blog within a short time window of the course module.

2. The research articles have opened me up to new learnings concerning research, systems thinking and digital transformation as a whole.

3. I have built professional relationships with my course mates online and offline, during this blogging experience.

What did not go well:

1. Lack of clarity on expectations at the start of the module because I did not understand the requirements for the midterm assignment. The zoom meeting and recording were really helpful as I was able to listen in over and over again so that I could comprehend what was expected to be done for the midterm assignment. I lost valuable time as a result of this.

2. The online forum structured is not very intuitive for me, since the beginning of the program. It is a steep learning curve that I keep on improving each day. Thankfully, I was able to reach out to colleagues to ask questions and also seek clarifications whenever I was not clear.

3. The lack of access to research materials from the library was limiting. I learnt to use google scholar and the other alternative ideas provided on the forum to access journals & articles for research purposes.

4. My blogging theme was mostly around service design as it relates to digital transformation and information systems. I found it somewhat difficult to compress my articles between the 400 to 500 words requirement, without losing context and articulate my thoughts in the blogposts.

What specifically I plan to do in future:

1. I did not engage my course mates online as much as I would like to, because I was giving attention to my literature research and making sure the blog posts were all set up and published correctly within a very short time frame window. I managed to contribute to activities by sharing a few thoughts and research outputs with my classmates and online forum. One principle, I will apply going forward is to increase engagement online by posting questions, sharing insights to learn from others and increase engagement within the class.

2. Going forward, I would ensure to apply alternative research mechanisms to avoid the limitations presented by the lack of access to journals articles from the library.