Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Thing #4

The Importance of Commenting

I have to admit, since I am new to this whole blogging thing, I have been a "lurker" not a commenter". After reading about how important commenting is I equate commenting to giving students feedback for tests. People want feedback and commenting is a way of giving people that feedback. When someone comments on a blog, it is telling the blogger that they connected with them and actually thought enough of their post to write a comment. It gives a sense of belonging and validation for what the blogger is doing. We are social beings and now that everyone is on a computer we have lost some of that, but we have also gained a new way of being social. We don't have to be social with the people around us but we can also make connections with people in other towns, states and even countries. Which makes the world a smaller place because of all the connections that people are able to make due to blogs and social media. 

Two points that stuck out from the readings were to watch out for the "Darth Commenter" and to make links to the blogs you comment on. I think part of the reason I never wanted to blog before is because of the "Darth Commenter", people can be mean and it can really put a bad taste in your mouth about the whole blogging thing. I tend to take things personally and I didn't want to put myself out there in the chance that someone would come along and decide to make a negative comment. Even though I am an adult now, I still care what people think of me, its a hard thing to break myself out of. If I do get a comment from a "Darth Commenter" then I will have to remind myself that I am who I am and if someone doesn't like me, that's ok and a comment from someone like that isn't worth getting upset about. My mom would always tell me to "consider the source". The second point I found important was to make a link to the blog that I commented on my own blog. If it is something that I thought enough of to comment on than, I want to first have a link back to the blog for myself and for any of my readers as well. If I have readers of my own blog, they must find what I have to say interesting so it would be safe to assume that my readers my also find what I thought to be interesting, interesting as well. Creating a link would make it easier for my readers to find the information instead of hunting for it. 

The Blogs I have decided to follow and comment on are:

The Amazing and Wonderful 23 Things According to Mrs. Pigg - Kyrie Pigg
Emily's 23 Things - Emily Ellison
23 Things from Mrs. Cruise- Rachel Cruise
Morgan's 23 Things- Morgan Bryant
Miss Z's 23 Things- Christin Zolkiewicz


Shenanigans in Second Grade
Wright's Room

The five I picked from our classroom are ones that I found interesting or I felt like I had some connection with. Emily would like to be a third grade teacher as would I, so I felt that we had a strong connection and would gain insight into how to use technology from an elementary school teacher's perspective. Kyrie's post seems to that it will be fun and interesting to read. She seems to be very upbeat in her posts and I am interested in what she has to say. I made a connection with Rachel's post about negative commenters and she seems to have similar thoughts to my own. I picked Morgan's at random only to find that I was one of her 5 classroom blogs to read. I picked Christin's because I am interested in how she will use technology when it comes to special education.

The two others of my choice I chose because they could help me in the future in teaching. I chose Shenanigans in Second Grade because the blogger is so creative with ways to keep the classroom fun while still learning. She has so many ideas I think are so wonderful to keep younger students engaged in their learning. I picked Wright's Room because she has a background in technology and she takes the time to respond to every one of her commenters. I feel like that says a lot about her and I wanted to be one of her readers, she was very insightful even about things that were not directly related to the classroom. I also thought it was interesting that she isn't from the US and I think this would offer an interesting perspective on teaching as well.


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