Feb 2, 2011

Internal Critique and First Evaluation


In this post of my blog I try to express what I think about my blog and its purpose and such in hopes that having to formulate the thoughts will help me improve the blog.  One more thing I should mention is that this blog was created as an assignment for my Communicating Science class, so some posts might not be directly related to biometrics.


What is the purpose of this blog?
 -   The purpose of this blog is to communicate new developments in Biometrics along with a highlight of major existing technologies.

Who is the imagined audience(s) of this blog?
-   The ideal audience of this blog is people who are not in the field of Biometrics but have an interest in learning more about the subject.

Have my posts matched up with my purpose/audience?  What/who might I be overlooking in defining my purpose/audience this way?
 -   My posts so far have strived to fit the purpose that I have outlined above and I feel that it has been accomplished.  The only people that I feel that would be overlooked by the definition of my purpose are the experts in the field, and people who do not care about the subject.

What can I do to encourage more reader participation with my blog?
 -   I will have posts that pose questions that are fully up for interpretation and thus a discussion can hopefully be achieved between me and my readers and between the readers themselves.

How can I expand my audience in this class?  Outside of this class?
 -   In order to expand my audience in this class I have to have posts that are interesting and post titles that grab the reader into wanting to know more.  As for outside of this class being able to be on Google search results should increase the amount of readers as well as trying to be linked from other blogs/websites that involve the topic.

How would I characterize the tone of my blog?
 -   The tone of my blog is a playfully inquisitive tone.

What do I hope to get out of writing this blog?
 -   I hope to expand my own knowledge on the field of Biometrics but more importantly I hope to be able to effectively communicate my thoughts and ideas with the general public in a clear and engaging way.

What would I like others to get out of it?
 -   Readers of my blog will hopefully learn about the newest Biometric technologies and be able to formulate their own opinion of the technologies and how they are being used.

What are the strengths of my blog/my blogging?
 -   The strength of my blog is in the (hopefully) direct link that I can provide between the research (journal articles) and my readers. 

What are the weaknesses?
 -   The biggest weakness that my blog has is the randomness of when it is updated.  I will try to get a more fixed schedule of when I post but my other commitments get in the way of being able to be more predictable.

Have I used a deficit model in my writing, or something else?  How would I know?
 -   In my opinion I have stayed away from the deficit model.  I write my posts in an informative clear way without “dumbing” down my posts. If I do default to the deficit model I will know by noticing that my blog posts are dry and do not foster involvement.

How have I characterized (implicitly or explicitly) science, engineering, and/or technology in my blog? 
 -   Overall I believe that I have characterized science in a good light.  However this should not be taken to mean that the technologies will not be critically analyzed and the flaws pointed out.  I hope to be impartial in how I present whether the technology is good or bad and leave that choice up to the reader.

How have I characterized myself?
 -   I have characterized myself as an enthusiast of Biometrics and someone who wants to share knowledge on the subject. 

-Carlos

Self Evaluation 1

I personally feel that my blog is coming along quite nicely.  I have posted a total of eight times being more than the required amount.  I have also done posts that were geared towards the assignment that week such as my research on possible ways to engage in upstream engagement on the topic of Biometrics.  I have also actively referred readers to other blogs and websites on the topic of Biometrics that they may find interesting.  

I believe that my blog is written clearly and understandably with little to no jargon and an explanation of any advanced terms used.  The posts are always written so as not to be too long winded and keep the readers interesting and for every post I have included multimedia to help in that respect.

I have been pretty successful in generating attention with lots of comments on my posts as well as my replies to reader's comments.  I have also been very active in other users blogs having a total comment count of around thirty comments on numerous different blogs.

Last but not least I feel that the design on my blog came together nicely with all the bugs I previously had being ironed out.  I designed the logo used on the blog myself in photoshop as well as the filters on the background.

A couple of things could be done better however, and the biggest one being getting more traffic to my blog that is not from the class.  I have tried to use titles of posts that "hook" the reader into trying to learn more but I need more exposure on Google.  Another thing I must improve on is linking to other bloggers of my topic.  This has been difficult because most blogs that relate are run by a company in the field so the posts are always framed in a fully pro-biometrics stand and I want to provide mostly unbiased information.




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