Late, late, late
Late again! Maybe too many kitkats last week, but time now for a hot chocolate.
Day 26 Other ways to comment - I am still learning how to use wikis and blogs properly and have only just started with photostory. But I did enjoy watching those people with audio and video skills comment on various blogs.
Day 27 My personal brand - I think my brand would be as a teacher because I tend to comment very directly, say things in the least possible number of words and rarely waffle on. Maybe 140 characters in Twitter is helping me be more succinct in my commenting.
Day 28 Blog commenting strategy - When I began blogging, I was commenting everywhere, because I had so many questions to ask those more experienced members of the edublogosphere. Now working with students, I am praising their efforts and giving clues as to how to improve their own commenting. I try to comment regularly on my students’ blogs and reply to comments in either my class or personal blog.
Day 29 A commenting guide for students - I’ve decided I will actually do that with my students next term. To begin their thinking I have written a survey for them to fill out about what makes a good comment.
Day 30 Change my teaching practices - I know that I am going to be using posts and comments as practical examples for improving students’ communication skills. Also I am going to create a page with the students called “Reflections on my learning” that will be password protected so only they can write on it. I feel students need to be able to reflect on what they have learnt and be prepared to give reasons for their thinking. But I don’t think this is easy to do, so instead of it being in the posts of their blogs, they can do it like a comment on their own page.
Day 31 Top five lessons
- Most students just like commenting but not necessarily thinking about improving their comments.
- You meet a lot of new people when taking part in a challenge.
- Commenting daily is easy, but writing up about the challenge in posts takes time.
- I am not a wordy person, rather I write exactly what I mean and don’t do a lot of extra explanation - maybe why some kids also find it hard.
- I am loving blogging and the enthusiasm has gradually won over some teachers at my school.
All this talk of chocolates and Hot Chocolate is making me feel hungry and thirsty. Meanwhile you aren’t too late — I’ve been really busy visiting all the blogs finishing up their posts on the Comment Challenge. I really love the idea of your Comment Survey for several reasons including 1) makes students reflect on what does make a good comment and their own commenting practices 2) great way of providing students input into their own Commenting Guide 3) excellent method of modeling other tools that you can use with blogs. I’ve linked to your survey so others can check it out.
Glad your enthusiasm has gradually won over some of the teachers at your school.
Congratulations on finishing the Challenge.
[...] Sue Wyatt’s created an online survey for her students using Google Documents so the students can share their ideas on comments and what makes good ones. She plans to use the results from her survey to create her Commenting Guide for Students. [...]
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