A very long time ago, I was asked to create a handout that would explain how a weblog would be useful to community development work. Most of the trainees should be familiar with the handout as they gave enough of them out at the convention. However, now that we stand within sight of the 'Final Frontier' as my trekkie colleague Jeremy has pointed out I thought it would be useful for us to reflect on this handout and think if there were indeed benefits.
Do we think that the weblog benefited the 'Community'. Of course it did, we, as workers and trainees, were the active community involved and I think that the experience of the weblog helped bind us together into something that is greater than its parts.
Did we learn anything from the use of the weblog. Read through the blogs and the comments, and I think you will agree there are so many incidents of people either identifing something that they need help or advice with, or are supporting someone in their learning.
Reflecting on your own practice. this is a big one, as in essense that is what I believe a weblog is all about, giving a person the opportunity to sit down and compose their thoughts and then write about their experiences, the good and the bad, we learn from it all.
And finally collective action, well for there to be collective action there has to first be interaction, and just by reading the posts and the comments between all of the weblogs, you can see that there has been a lot of that.
So overall I believe that the weblog has been a huge success and I hope to think that this usage of weblogs will become more acceptable practice for community workers and other similar professionals. I for one would love to be able to still log onto the weblogs in the future and see the continued trials and tribulations of this wonderful group of trainees.
So here is to the future and the undiscovered country, its been a wonderful journey so far, lets see where it takes us.......
