// Langwitches Blog

I know that the Comment Challenge has concluded almost 3 weeks ago, but I also know that it was just impossible for me to work on and finish during that time due to it coinciding with the last days of our school year, post planning and summer camps.

I don’t like to leave things unfinished, so I will continue completing the challenges one by one. Some of the post were already started earlier and I need to put the finishing touches on them.

Day 25: Take a Break!

Day 26: Exploring Other Ways to Comment

As many of us have discovered during the Challenge, written comments can sometimes be misconstrued or make it difficult for us to get our point across. Multimedia commenting, though, can address some of these issues. Today’s task comes from Silvia Tolisano who asks us to think about other ways to comment on blogs. For example, Kate Foy and others have been playing around with video commenting using Seesmic . Here’s a sample of how it looks. You could also use audio for comments, as this teacher did (although she recorded files and emailed them to her students). Although I haven’t used it, Snapvine looks like it might be a decent option for doing this.

For today’s task, explore how you might use multimedia for a richer commenting experience. Consider whether or not you think multimedia is a better option and how it might impact learning. You may even want to try out some multimedia commenting.

We are commenting (responding to other people’s ideas, thoughts, orders, provocations, lectures, or points of view, etc. everyday in many different ways. These kind of comments are face to face, mumbled under our breath, in our head, in our dreams, as a letter to the editor, via a phone, text message, IM, Twitter or as the focus of this challenge was on blogs.

I have left a few audio comments in the past month, but really have not felt that I was able to get much out of it. I can’t really explain what I thought I was supposed to "get out of it". Maybe I just wanted it to feel different than if I were to leave a traditional written comment. I can see that audio commenting could be the preferred method of some, who have a harder time with writing or like the speed, but the same is true the other way around. I guess it would be the best, if a commenter could choose what kind of method they would prefer.

I have not warmed up to leaving a video comment using a webcam with my face in the middle. Partly because I don’t feel comfortable enough to leave "my video taped self" as a breadcrumb all over the place. and partly because it would take me too long to prepare and re-tape until my vain self would be acceptable to be broadcast. Maybe I should consider using masks like the one Logitech includes with their Webcam software.

My absolute favorite way of commenting at this point is on Twitter .  I like the feeling of almost an instant,  response, when someone leaves a tweet about a book they are reading, a link they are recommending, a blog they just posted, etc..

So, I guess I am not too adventurous when it comes to commenting in a different media. I was willing to experiment, but I know what kind fits my personality.

Technorati Tags: comment08