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

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