Running the gauntlet
I’m on my blog every day checking out the comments to moderate, doing the same for my class blog and the blogs of students in my class. I thought I will keep up with the comment challenge fairly easily. Should only take up half an hour or so every day and considering I am on the computer every night when I get home from school ………… but what happens??
Here it is day 19 and when did I last post about the challenge … Day 10
So now I am having to change the Aussie thongs on my feet for some running shoes which I have just had to go and buy.
Day 11: Writing a blog comment policy - why should I need to do this? As a teacher, I moderate all my blogs including the student ones, so nothing nasty gets through. As long as there is no foul language used or spam, then most anything is acceptable especially if you can explain your point of view if disagreeing with something I have written.
Day 12: Comment friendly blog technology - I am sorry for those readers who comment more than once on my blogs but for the safety of students, I moderate everything. Therefore nothing gets published until I have read it. In the four months I have been blogging, I have received a couple of ‘doubtful’ trackbacks but no negative comments or spam, so fingers crossed, this will continue in the future. I could though, change my technology on my personal blog to let through second time commenters without moderation.
Day 13: Write a post based on comments - I think I accomplished this during my audit on day 10 when I virtually wrote a post about “Why is no-one commenting?”
Day 14: Turning blog over to readers - already finished.
Day 15: This commenter badge goes to one of the students in my class who has her own blog. She always visits blogs from other students in the room and also students included in our class blogroll. I have had teachers write back to me about her and her comments. Well done, Lisa!! She is also a student who will come to teacher sessions on Monday after school to help teachers with their blogging skills.
Day 16: Catch up on something - I still haven’t completed days 5 and 8. I think these are two challenges that might be done during the last couple of days of the month once I am on holidays.
Day 17: Five in five - this can be fairly easy when doing it with my student blogs because I have already read the post before it was published. But I have come across a few students taking part in the challenge who have some very insightful posts about the environment and how they can make a change in the world - I certainly took more than five minutes to read and comment on these blogs.
Day 18: Analyze the comments -
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Batting 1000+ (11)
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Creating a classroom blog (10)
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Why has no-one commented? (13)
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Newbie asking questions (10)
Similarities in these posts - they all asked the readers for their opinion and to give clues to me as a newbie blogger. All four of those posts generated quality as well as quantity - many comments in all four posts came from the same people who were willing to share their knowedge with me and recommend other blogs to read or programs to use.
At the stage of writing those posts, I was not a member of Twitter, but since joining, I notice there are less comments on the posts because I can get immediate answers by sending out a tweet.
Well this has now taken nearly two hours to complete and I am still behind in the challenge. Oh well, less than half the month to go …..
WOW I think Lisa definitely deserves that award plus some if she is stays back after school to help teachers with their blogging. Would love to hear more about this teachers session and Lisa’s great work when you have time. Also would love to hear how your students are going with the challenge — but understandably time is an issue so it can wait.
Surprised about decreased comment numbers after joining twitter; I’ve always thought it would be the opposite. I need to do a bit more thinking and research on this.
I have had the opposite experience - Twitter has increased my comments. But I can see why this would be an issue. I am so impressed with your student, Lisa. How brilliant!
I just laughed and laughed when I read your first paragraph as I can just see it all happening!!! I agree that Lisa has been a great little activist and she will go a long way in life. One of your boys has been good too. I had enrolled for the challenge but as cocomment kept crashing my internet I gave up. So, now I just enjoy reading what everyone else is doing. HOpe we can catch up next week. Hope you dont have to buy another pair of shoes before it is all over. My kids do their own moderation as I could not keep up with them at all.
@Sue maybe the comments have also decreased because I have written less interesting posts rather than blaming Twitter, cause I must admit, I visit more blogs now from clicking away in Twitter than I ever did just reading other peoples comments on your posts.
@Sarah - yes I am rather impressed with a few of my students. Over the last two Mondays I have had five different students stay behind to help teach other teachers about blogging. Most of these students have only been blogging about two months.
@murcha - if you saw me, you would probably laugh even harder - I wear thongs or open toed shoes ALL the time, summer or winter, rain hail or shine. Some of my students are certainly branching out and visiting other blogs. Regarding moderation of comments, the student and I are co-administrators of their blogs until someone does something wrong, then I will be sole administrator.