Comments on Commenting

Right now the Comment Challenge is in full swing! I have to admit that although I haven't been doing the daily challenges, I have tried to be just a little more active by reading, writing, and commenting on blogs. Thank you to everyone who has commented on my blog lately, especially new commenters on my blog, Sue and Ines.

The issue of commenting came up during the SMiELT session earlier this year when the blogging group considered the value of comments. I posted a message to the forum of the group, in response to some questions. I am going to repost my answers below, adding a bit of context to each of them. If you're a member of SMiELT, you can view the entire thread here.


Do you think commenting is an important part of blogging or not?

As a co-moderator of Blogging4Educators, I was busy making comments on participants blogs. I found that this was a really meaningful way to engage in conversations with others. After I started using coComment, I noticed my comments were showing up on blogs via the coComment widgets, and this seemed to be a powerful way to make connections and to discover new blogs. As a result, I posted my opinion to the discussion forum:

Yes, commenting is an important part of blogging! Blogging is all about making connections and continuing conversations. The interaction through commenting makes blogging really fun! Recently, I started using coComment which allows you to save, track, and tag all of the conversations you are commenting on around the web. Displaying a coComment widget with your current comments may be just one of the ways we can encourage commenting.


If you do, what can we as teachers do to encourage commenting?

With one of my classes, we had one blog where students continued interacting with each other outside of class, and we were often visited by people outside of the class. Through online communities of practice, many teachers and students from around the world dropped by our blog and left comments. This really seemed to pique students' interest and to motivate them to use and to visit the blog. Therefore, I thought that one great way to encourage commenting was to invite people outside the class to get involved too, so I wrote these ideas in the SMiELT discussion forum:

I think Gabriela had a good idea when she said that teachers could ask for other teachers and students with more blogging experience to comment on the blog too. As teachers, we can encourage commenting by modeling the types of comments that we expect from students. If students have been reading blogs, then they will have a better idea about commenting too.

Also, commenting is a skill that students need some guidance on. For instance, as part of this SMiELT course, we watched the video about using comments to start conversations, and then we had a task to practice what we learned from it. Another useful resource about commenting is How to Comment Like a King or Queen by Vicki Davis. Just like anything else, we can’t expect that students already know how to do it; we should provide some information to them.

Assignment ideas:

One way to encourage commenting might be to have a mystery guest on the blog, or a guest who could be interviewed via the blog. Then, students can read the post, and add comments and questions. Here is an example of an interview with a wedding cake designer. Of course the comments could have been deeper, and we could have gotten more into the cultural differences, but we all have to start somewhere!

Thanks for reading my reflections on commenting. Even though comments are important, they aren't everything -- they are just one piece of the blogging puzzle. So, what do you think -- are comments important? If so, how can we encourage commenting? Do you have any ideas on encouraging students to comment?

Blogging4Educators 2008 EVO Session

It isn't that long until the kick-off event for TESOL's EVO 2008! This year, I am going to co-moderate the session Blogging4Educators with a fabulous group of bloggers: Carla A, Gladys, Erika, Ana Maria, Nina, Carla R, Claudia, Cris, Vance, and Dennis. It is so exciting to share and learn with them. Even though I have never met them face-to-face, we have been working together on a regular basis over the past six months preparing for the session. Their messages greet me every morning, and because we are all in different time zones, it seems like at least one of us is always working on the session!

We are going to explore both Blogger and Wordpress. Since I have been blogging with Blogger, Ana Maria and I have been working on our Blogging4Educators Blogger blog. It is always exciting to create a new blog, knowing that it will soon become a collaborative space for sharing personal reflections and experiences. Carla A and Carla R have been busy creating Blogging4Educators edublog. We are all eagerly awaiting the official start date of the session - January 14.

The next six weeks promise to be exciting, enriching, and undoubtedly exhausting as well. After EVO finishes, some of us will gather at TESOL's Annual Convention in New York, New York! In fact, Carla A and I will give a presentation for the Electronic Village Fair about our Blogging4Educators session.

Hope you will join us online or in New York. Here is an introduction to our session:


This six-week EVO2008 workshop (Jan 14th to Feb 24th, 2008) aims at introducing teachers with no extensive experience in blogging to different ways in which this technique can be integrated into their teaching and professional development.

By the end of the workshop, you will have experimented with creating and enhancing blogs, posting and editing entries, inviting members to your blogs and commenting on others' blogs - using either Blogger or Wordpress platforms. You will also have explored blog comment management, template personalization, tagging (labeling) and RSS (really simple syndication).

You can join us, and follow the session by visiting our Yahoo! Group.

Using FeedBlendr to keep up with everything!

A Professional Development Quick Tip

When signing up for an EVO session, there are many sites to keep track of. For example, for Blogging for Educators, we have a Yahoo Group, two blogs, a wiki, bookmarks, Twitter, and so on! It seems like an impossible task to keep up with everything in one session, let alone two or more! Then, I came across FeedBlendr, which "lets you combine a bunch of feeds into one," according to their site.

I used FeedBlendr to create a feed for the online community of practice, Learning with Computers, and put it on my personal professional development Pageflakes. So far this has been a great way to keep track of "everything" related to LwC. I'm glad I perused Daf's del.icio.us bookmarks to find this great tip! Give it a try during EVO and see if it works for you too!

Related posts
Happy New Year (about joining this year's EVO sessions)
B4B Week Three Summary (a link to the live session held with Phil Hollows from Feedblitz during last year's Blogging for Beginners EVO session)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!! It is January 1, so it must be time for EVO '08!
Check out the available sessions on the call for participation site. Which one will you join?

Here is Dafne's Call for Participation message:
Dear all,

The CALL Interest Section of the international TESOL
professional association is pleased to offer the
opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village
Online (EVO) 2008 season. This is a professional
development project and virtual extension of the TESOL
2008 Convention in New York. The intended audience
for this project includes both TESOL 2008 participants
and those who can participate only virtually.

You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in
a free , six-week , wholly online session of the EVO,
Jan 14 - Feb 24, 2008. Please visit our Announcement
Page to select one or two among the various offerings.

http://evo08sessionscfp.pbwiki.com

Feel free to distribute this annoucement.

Looking forward to having you in the EVO 2008 sessions,

Yours in TESOL ,

Dafne Gonzalez
On behalf of the EVO coordination team