As part of the 2008 31 Day Comment Challenge, we’ve been asked to consider how we’re inviting conversation on our own blogs. It’s been suggested that we use Michele Martin’s post Six Reasons People Aren’t Commenting On Your Blog as a guide for auditing our blogs. Here are six common traps Michele says bloggers fall into.

1. You sound like a press release.
2. You sound like an info-mercial.
3. You sound like a know-it-all.
4. You haven’t showed them how.
5. You haven’t created the right atmosphere.
6. You just don’t seem that into it.

Ouch! That’s one tough list!

At first glance I think I can easily stroke two items off the list. So let’s revise.

1. You sound like a press release.
2. You sound like an info-mercial.
3. You sound like a know-it-all.
4. You haven’t showed them how.
5. You haven’t created the right atmosphere.
6. You just don’t seem that into it.

Number 6 was easy to eliminate. If I’m not “into it” I don’t write about it. Period.

Number 4 was also pretty easy. Figure it out people! There’s a similar structure to most blog platforms. There’s always some mention of “Comments”. Click on the link and see what happens

The rest are really hard! I suppose at times I may be perceived as sounding like a know-it-all writing press releases about what I’ve been doing and learning, and posting info-mercials that invite teachers to join my projects. That’s not my intention! In reflecting on my work I feel it’s as important to share the lessons I’ve learned as it is to raise questions. I’m trying to do this in a clear, well-thought-out manner. There are project promotions on this blog. I don’t see them as info-mercials; I’m not selling anything. I work for a not-for-profit organization that connects scientists, researchers, engineers and astronauts with classes around the world in an online collaborative learning environment. There is no cost for teachers to enroll in any of our projects and I use every means at my disposal to get the word out so as many classes as possible can get involved. As for number 5 – atmosphere, I hope people find it warm and welcoming.

This is a tough challenge; it’s very difficult to hear your own voice! Here’s how I think it sounds.

1. You sound like a press release. You have clear, well-thought-out reflections.
2. You sound like an info-mercial. You are passionate about the opportunities you are developing for students.
3. You sound like a know-it-all. You are willing to share what you have learned.
4. You haven’t showed them how. You believe in letting people build confidence by discovering things on their own.
5. You haven’t created the right atmosphere. (I really can’t gauge this one.)
6. You just don’t seem that into it. You write about the things that truly engage you.

You tell me – how does my voice sound to you?

Technorati tags: comment08, Comment Challenge, commenting, “blog audit”, “Michele Martin”

Through this process I’m learning a lot about community. It appears that we’re basically in agreement that blogging is not a solitary pursuit. I think one of the main reasons we all start professional blogs is to take part in conversation with others in the profession, to learn from and with each other. Unfortunately the “Field of Dreams” metaphor doesn’t hold true here. Readers won’t come just because you’ve built a place for them. Community doesn’t just happen; it must be built one conversation at a time.

The Comment Challenge is proving to be an excellent impetus to build community. I’ve been trying to pick out key features of the community as I’ve been watching it grow. Here are a few that have caught my attention.

1. Purpose. Just as there is a reason why the community where you live exists geographically, online communities need a sense of purpose. In the Comment Challenge we share a common purpose – (as stated by Kim Cofino), “to become better blog citizens by actively participating in conversations and sharing our learning, especially with those new to blogging”.
2. Culture. We are building and sharing a culture of learning. When you read through the conversations, you see it stated over and over that we are learning this, that and the other thing. What we’re seeing here is that our learning is embedded in our common purpose. For instance, we’re all struggling with the various tools we’re using to track our conversations, but we are doing it together as part of moving toward our common purpose. I haven’t run into anyone yet who has said: “Ok folks, I’m having trouble with coComment. I’m going to wait for the in-service, then try and find some time to learn it, and then I’ll be back to take part.” It has become part of our culture to learn how to use these tools in situ.
3. Interaction. Many of us are seeing increased traffic to our own blogs, “click-throughs” from the comments we’re leaving on the blogs of others. Interaction involves risk-taking, but the professional tone and supportive manner I am seeing everywhere I go is building confidence in the individual members of the group, in turn adding to the strength of the community.

For me a lot of the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place; a picture of a vibrant learning community is taking shape!

Technorati tags: comment08, coComment, Comment Challenge, Kim Cofini, building community

Kate Foy and Kevin Hodgson created great videos to give us a peek into the their commenting journeys. In the spirit of fun, here’s a quick Animoto flick to give you a sense of where I’ve “been” lately.

Technorati tags: comment08, , Comment Challenge, Kate Foy, Kevin Hodgson, Animoto

Today’s challenge relates to comment tracking. This is a critical element of commenting. When you make the effort to comment on someone’s post, it’s usually because the writer struck a chord and drew you into the conversation. It follows that you would have an interest in seeing where the conversation goes. A number of blogs have a “Follow this conversation by e-mail” function. That’s the first method I used to track a conversation and I have to admit I might still use it for a conversation in which I’m deeply involved.

About a year ago I started looking for a more efficient way to track the conversations in which I was involved. I was also coming to the realization that some of my best thinking and writing was happening on other people’s blogs, leaving my own looking a bit barren. That’s when I found coComment. It seemed to offer what I was looking for – a way to track my comments and aggregate them on my own blog through a widget. If you are interested in having a detailed look at how coComment works visit Sue Waters‘ blog. She has done a superb job of explaining how to use this tool.

I had stopped using coComment a while back because I was finding it cumbersome and felt it was slowing down my posting. I’m having a fresh look now as part of the Comment Challenge. There are features that I missed before or that have been added recently that I’m finding worthy of a second look.

1. Tags. When you track a comment you can tag it with one or more keywords. Then when you view your comment page you can click on any of your tags to see just those comments. Love this feature!
2. RSS. I don’t think I could function without RSS so I was pleased to see that I can pull in the feed from any of the conversations or groups I’m tracking. I’ve subscribed to the feed for the Comment Challenge group and am reading the comments in Google Reader. So far, I think I like this.
3. Social networking. I had noticed before that coComment suggests “neighbours” and allows you to add friends and follow their comments. Personally I can barely keep up with the blogs I subscribe to; I’m not even going to try to keep track of other people’s comments! I do however like the “Group” feature. We’re using it to pull together the comments of the 100 or so people involved in the Commenting Challenge. I can see how this would be an asset in the classroom and in professional learning!

There are other comment tracking systems as well. Maybe I’ll have time to look at them during this challenge. Better yet, I’ll see what others post as part of the Day 3 Activity!

Technorati tags: Comment Challenge, comment08, Sue Waters, coComment

I think this is just the kick-in-the-pants I need to get back to being a participating citizen of the edublogsphere, one who enjoys the right to take part in collegial dialogue and lives up to the responsibility of adding to the conversation in a meaningful way.

I’m looking at the Challenge Activity for Day 1 (and I’d better hurry as this day is rapidly getting away from me). The activity is to do a commenting self-audit. It’s interesting that as I’m reflecting on my commenting behaviour, I stumble upon today’s post by David Truss where he re-visits one of his posts from a year ago. One of the comments David quotes from the original post is mine. A year ago I commented daily – on many of the blogs aggregating in my Google Reader as well as throughout the Classroom 2.0 community.

Here’s a snapshot of my Google Reader as of five minutes ago:

Four hundred + unread items. That’s actually not too bad, considering it was consistently 1000+ items for the first couple of months this year. I’ll admit – in juggling all the things screaming for my time, I’ve let reading slip down the priority list. And if I’m not reading it follows that I haven’t been commenting either. Well I’m back – at least for the next thirty days! Want to join me?

Technorati Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, Michele Martin, Kim Cofino, David Truss, Comment Challenge

Checking my Google Reader Friday morning led me to an invitation from Vicki Davis to virtually attend her sessions that day at the MAINEducation 2007 Technology Conference. She invited us to “pull up the stream [on UStream TV] and then follow along in the Google presentation“. I decided to accept the invitation and take the opportunity to “learn over the shoulders” of the participants in the Blogging for a Better Classroom presentation.

Having had a few experiences watching Will Richardson, David Jakes, Dean Shareski, IJohn Pederson and others play with UStream TV and Operator11 earlier in the week, I thought I knew what to expect – audio and video from the presentation and a running chat with the other viewers/listeners. Vicki’s expert use of UStream blew me away! She confidently and expertly handled the technology and skillfully drew those of us on the outside into the group, as though she’d been presenting this way for years. There are several factors which made Vicki’s presentation so successful.

1. The use of the UStream TV tool was planned by the presenter and not spring upon the presenter. Earlier on Friday I watched David Warlick’s presentation in Webster, Wisconsin courtesy of IJohn Pederson’s broadcast through UStream TV. Although David was made aware that IJohn was broadcasting, he hadn’t planned for the broadcast to be integrated into his presentation. Those of us “on the outside” never joined the group “on the inside”. Vicki on the other hand invited us, acknowledged our presence, welcomed us, encouraged her face to face participants to join us in the backchannel, and planned for ways for us to be drawn into the F2F group.
2. The viewers/listeners, (back channelers), were drawn into the presentation in a meaningful way. For instance, right off the bat, we were invited to drop links to our own blogs in the backchannel chat. Rather than talking about teachers who blog, Vicki brought us along and immediately connected the session participants to our blogs. There were other opportunities for us to add to the presentation, e.g. “Tell us how you are handling comments on your blogs”.
3. Vicki assigned what she called a “Backchannel Bouncer”, (sorry Vicki, I don’t care for the term), to watch the backchannel, welcome the participants, summarize responses to the presenter’s questions, and report back comments or questions that should be addressed. This role which was played expertly by Cheryl Oakes, is essential for managing the communication flow!

Here’s a snapshot of the session.

I went in intending to “learn over the shoulders” of the participants. Instead I found myself actively engaged with the group – all without leaving my desk. How’s that for playing with boundaries?

Technorati tags: education, edubloggers, blogging, UStream TV, backchanneling, Vicki Davis, David Warlick, K12 Online Conference, k12online07

There seems to be a real emphasis in this social network on developing community, not just sharing ideas and resources, but also defining common goals and taking steps toward reaching those goals. One step involves organized virtual meet-ups. I think these will go a long way to promoting a sense of community, bringing a very personal touch to the online experience! I was glad I was able to make the Elluminate session with Julie Lindsay last night. It was great to hear other bloggers share their excitement about the impact of blogging in their professional lives. I tried to attend the session this afternoon facilitated by Vicki Davis, but today was my day for one disaster and a million and one interruptions, so unfortunately I finally just had to give up.

The EduBloggerWorld community has designated today as ‘Window to the EduBlogger World’. We are all invited to share our experiences with blogging and post a photo of our own blogging area, showing others what we are looking at when we blog.

This sounded like fun, so first thing this morning I took a picture of the view from my desk.

I work with the YES I Can! Science project, an outreach project of the Faculty of Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. As this is a good two and a half hour commute from my house, and office space at the university is at a premium, I’ve elected to work from my home office. I’ve been doing this for several years now and have learned that if I am going to have any chance at a life that doesn’t involve working 24/7, I need to have a designated office in my home. Fortunately for me this office has beautiful views of my porch and front garden.

After I posted this picture, I was interrupted by a major database error, (human error), that took most of the day to rectify. Throughout the day, this post was percolating in the back of my mind. When I got back to my blog and had a second look at my photo, I realized that this is the “micro” view from my desk; there’s a bigger picture of where I blog.

I blog globally, on all of the project sites I create and facilitate, where we connect K-12 students from around the world with mentors, experts, and scientists working in the field.

I have learned so much from these blogging experiences:

• a 12 year old can become impassioned about laboratory work, and can emerge as the expert in “tissue-sampling techniques”, interpreting the researchers’ posts for the rest of us;
• a teenager in a residential treatment facility can find dignity and purpose in the anonymity of a blog;
• aboriginal students in northern Canada can find powerful voices through blogging;
• students can take over the purpose and function of their class blog, leaving the teacher in the role of commenter;
• scientists, engineers and astronauts can become engaged with the thoughtful questions and observations of K-12 students.

These lessons, I learned quickly and early in my blogging experiences with students. They excite and motivate me to keep up with hundreds of student bloggers at a time.

It’s only been in the last six months that I’ve recognized the value of blogging for my own professional growth. I’ve discovered that blogging starts with reading. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It’s not though. Until you read widely, you won’t recognize the power and wisdom of the “network.” Through the “magic” of RSS, I have been able to pull together an incredibly effective personal learning network from the edublogspere. I have learned more in a shorter period of time than at any other point in my very long career – from reading, commenting, reflecting and conversing with edubloggers. My learning network has become almost organic; it changes as my own thinking progresses and morphs as conversations start, finish and evolve. My Google reader regularly drops and adds feeds, letting me pull in, aggregate, tag and take part in the conversations that resonate with me at any given moment.

I’ve also come to realize that writing can be a powerful element in my thinking process, helping me to pull my thoughts together or just let them flow organically. I use my blog to start conversations, archive my thoughts and experiences, and make connections between my ideas and those of other edubloggers. I find as I re-read my drafts looking to find just the right wording, that I’m asking myself a lot of questions that move beyond semantics or style:

• “so what do you really mean to say?”
• “why do you think that?”
• “is there another perspective?”
• “what else do you need to know?”
• “what next?”

As much as I believe that you blog first of all for yourself, I also feel the need to be part of a community. I find it difficult to speak in an empty room; after a while my voice trails off. Similarly I think it’s hard to blog as a solitary experience. Interaction, (through commenting), is critical to pushing thinking. EduBloggerWorld is helping to build community, giving edubloggers a “home base”, linking our personal blogs and facilitating the advancement of common agendas. I look forward to seeing where we can go together over the next few months…

Technorati tags: edubloggerworld2007 edubloggerworld edubloggerworldmeetup2007 YES I Can! Science McMaster University

I’ve been travelling for the last week and just skimming my RSS feeds. Now that I’m back home “I’m digging in” to some of the “meatier” posts I’d set aside. I’m feeling kind of like this cartoon at the moment.

Technorati tags: Nussbaum-Beach cartoons blogging edubloggers RSS Dave Walker

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

For sure, I’d guess at least five years. Well I’m off a fair bit – double that. According to this article in the Wall Street journal:

We are approaching a decade since the first blogger — regarded by many to be Jorn Barger — began his business of hunting and gathering links to items that tickled his fancy, to which he appended some of his own commentary. On Dec. 23, 1997, on his site, Robot Wisdom, Mr. Barger wrote: “I decided to start my own webpage logging the best stuff I find as I surf, on a daily basis,” and the Oxford English Dictionary regards this as the primordial root of the word “weblog.”

The article goes on to mention that David Winer, who blogged with Scripting News, and Cameron Barrett, who started CamWorld were also early adopters of this new form of journalism/editorialism. In fact when I searched for CamWorld to find the link to insert here, I came across this entry, posted July 11, CamWorld Turns Ten. It’s a fascinating post. In it Barrett states:

Ten years ago today I sat down at my trusty Apple PowerMac 7100 (66 Mhz), fired up a text editor and wrote the very first entry of this weblog. It said simply, “Life is a constant challenge.”

There was no further explanation, no diatribe about the turmoil my life was in at the time, no links to web design and HTML resources elsewhere on the web, no opinion about politics, no product reviews or endorsements. It was simply a cheap rhetorical statement thrown out into the growing thing which soon acquired a name: the blogosphere.

Barrett goes on to describe how much a part of his life blogging has become and how his blog has chronicled major events in life, including his claim that he was the first person to ever get fired over a blog. He also added that although blogging is still important to him, personal and work commitments keep him from writing as much as he’d like.

I’m not going to summarize any more of the Wall Street Journal article here. It’s a fascinating read, with a dozen brief meditations by people, (such as Mia Farrow, Newt Gingrich and Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner), from a variety of walks of life on what the blog has come to mean to them. Pour the beverage of your choice, relax and check it out for yourself!

There are a few videos embedded in the article as well. This one resonated so much with me, I felt compelled to embed it here, as opposed to simply pointing to it.

In the video, Cory Doctorow and David Pescovitz of BoingBoing.net talk about how they come up with ideas for their blog posts. They simply write about the topics they are passionate about. They don’t claim to be “experts” on these topics. They know that with the size and diversity of their readership, there will always be readers who are “smarter than they are”. Their readers, who are also passionate about the topic, (or they wouldn’t have made their way there), will correct any inaccuracies or misconceptions in the post, answer questions the bloggers may have asked, or just add to their depth of understanding. In fact Doctorow says that often they end up collaborating with the people they are writing about.

I’ve watched the video several times now. To me it really drives home the critical role the reader has in blogging. The onus is on the reader to not only make meaning from the text, but to contribute to the text. If David Warlick were ever to read this post, I imagine he’d say, yes, that’s part of the new literacy I’ve been talking about. Well David, I think I get it!

Technorati Tags: blogging blogiversary Wall Street Journal VARADARAJAN literacy Warlick