31 Day Comment Challenge- Are You Up for it?
Blogging in and for the educational field is:
- not only about posting
- not only about leaving and receiving comments
- not about promoting your blog on Twitter or other sites
- not about getting a high ranking on Technorati
It should be:
- all about personal learning
- sharing thoughts, ideas, resources
- reading
- writing
- the process
- and encouraging others in their learning journey (we are educators after all)
It is only when you have experienced for yourself a realization that you are pondering something someone else wrote and:
- feel the need to get clarification
- want to add your two cents
- bounce off a thought off someone else who has been in that situation and might have more insight or experience
- hope for a different point of view to allow you to see an issue from a different perspective
The following posts and bloggers inspired the desire to do something more. We felt/ feel we needed to challenge ourselves to go to the next level, to go that extra mile, to test the waters and see what we learn in the process. But we also feel we want to help and reach out to others, especially edu-bloggers who are just starting out.
- Sue Waters from Perth, Australia: First Five Tops for Writing Better Blog Posts
- Kim Cofino from Bangkok, Thailand: Committin g to Conversations
- Michele Martin from Pennsylvania, USA from Becoming a Blog Citizen
- My previous post from Florida, USA Mentoring and Helping New Bloggers
The 31-Days Comment Challenge was born. Kim and Susan have already worked on details.Kim wrote on her blog Always Learning :
We would like to have a month of focused commenting for those of us that are interested in becoming better blog citizens (thanks to Martin Weller for the phrasing ) by actively participating in conversations and sharing your learning, especially with those new to blogging.
We would like to challenge participants to be better blog citizens tracking who is the commenter with:
- The most comments on a wide range of blogs (not just the “top†edubloggers)
- The most high quality comments that thoughtfully reflect on the topic
- The comments that provoke and promote the most learning
Sue has even managed to secure monetary prizes from coComment and other sponsors (more details on the prizes soon).
So, ask YOURSELF if you are up to participating in this challenge?
Don’t tell yourself that you are not a good writer or that you don’t have the time or that you can’t compare yourself to others who always just seem to find the right words. Challenge yourself, challenge other bloggers to learn something new and in a different way. Isn’t that what we want from and for our students? I am up for it. Are you?
Thanks, Silvia. I’m working with a school right now that is trying to launch blogging, and your post is both clear and useful.
Thanks for adding the “why” to my post about the “what”
Love the logo! Adding it to the wiki now.
Great idea!
I am excited about this adventure. Can’t wait to begin.
Bonnie
Sylvia,
I couldn’t agree with you more—one of the things lacking from many people’s perceptions of blogging is that it’s all about publishing.
For me, blogging is all about ideas—-I like sharing what’s rumbling through my head, listening to what others think about my ideas, and crafting new positions after my thinking has been challenged.
It’s really nothing more than constructivist learning at its best, I guess.
Do you think that a part of our struggles with commenting comes from what I’ve started to call our “author-awe?” I mean, think about it….from the time we were small, we were taught that writing was a static process—the author writes….we read….finished.
So in an era when reading has become interactive—allowing readers to actually challenge the thinking of authors—-we are a bit timid.
Does commenting somehow feel “wrong” to those of us who grew up in a less interactive world?
Bill
Ok, she says taking a deep breath and plunging head first into something she’s been meaning to do for ages – I’m in!
@Bill
I have been trying to get the same point across in many of my blog posts. It is NOT all about publishing. It is about sharing your thoughts, encouraging others and most importantly (for me)about sorting through my own learning path and connect my thoughts and ideas. It is amazing to read posts from the end of last year.
I like your word “author-awe” for describing how many of us feel. You are right, we did no grow up with that interactiveness of being able to question and author, instead we were confronted with the finality of a traditional book or article has on paper.
We can also apply the “author-awe” label to many who are too afraid to “submit” a comment or post, because they do not feel they are good enough writers. They are intimidated by “real” authors or more experienced bloggers.
We will need to jump over our own shadows. That is why I believe the Comment Challenge can be the catalyst for many of us to do just that. Try it and see what happens. Maybe in time we will not feel “author-awe”.
@harriet
I am with you. Deep breath… I am going feet first though
I am approaching this as a much-needed learning experience in addition to motivation for getting my edublog(s) rolling over the summer.
Now if someone can point me in the direction of a crash course in ‘blog post speak’ and a tutorial on using coComments without installing it in a browser I’d be *most* grateful.
@Kristi,
I am not sure if it is possible to track your comments without the browser install of a bookmarklet or browser extension. Maybe someone else can confirm or enlighten us on that issue.
Check out Sue Water’s tutorial she posted on using CoComment
[...] a bit about the process. I left one comment on Silvia Tolisano’s Langwitches Blog on the 31 Day Comment Challenge- Are You Up for it? post about needing a crash course in ‘blog comment speak’ and about using coComments [...]
This is a great idea … I’m a little apprehensive about it, but I’m going to give it a try. I’ve been wanting to focus more on my commenting, so this comes at a perfect time for me.
–Stacie
[...] discovered as part of the 31 Day Comment Challenge, Silvia Tolisano’s insights on Blogging in Education. She does an excellent job in defining the differences between traditional blogging and educational [...]
[...] is. In fact, it’s important enough that a few people organized a 31 Day Commenting Challenge. This announcement page for it explains simply and eloquently why it is such a significant activity to engage it in order to be a [...]
Your ideas are a perfect follow up to Steve’s challenge, and I agree that commenting is as important, perhaps more so, than blogging. Please count me in on your challenge; so glad that at the end of these 30 days there will be more learning, more collaboration to anticipate. Thank you so much.
PS I love your website; visually beautiful and engaging even before I begin to read. Engagement at every learning level.
[...] not sure if I ready for the Comment Challenge” make sure you read Silvia’s excellent Are You Up for it? post on why it’s important for your personal learning that you join us! If you’ve never [...]