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I was inspired by Aviva Dunsinger who posted a video of her second grader talking about his blog.

Here are a few of our second graders talking about their classroom blog (not individual blogs). If you are blogging with your students, take a few moments to record them. Our recording was completely impromptu. No prep… no rehearsal… just a few questions and a flip camera. It is so important to start asking the kids, let’s hear their voices…

I am enjoying my Kindle tremendously. I am also trying ot be aware how the Kindle is changing (or not) my use, reading, storing, buying habits and general attitude towards books.

My reading habit is not necessarily linear and sequential, at least not for non-fiction books.  I do not read one book straight through. I have usually 5-6 books on my nightstand and/or now on the Kindle, that I am reading a little here and a little there. The Kindle allows me to highlight and copy quotes as I am reading into a “Clipping” file, that I can save later to my computer. I copied and pasted this file below. I find it a nice bread crumb trail of my reading and useful if I need/want to go back to read the context of the quote.

Anna Karenina (Leo Nikoleyevich, 1828-1910 Tolstoy)
- Highlight Loc. 661-62 | Added on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 04:19 PM

it’s very much like that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all difficult questions over his right shoulder. But to deny the facts is no answer.

Anna Karenina (Leo Nikoleyevich, 1828-1910 Tolstoy)
- Highlight Loc. 2 | Added on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 04:20 PM

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Henry Jenkins)
- Highlight Loc. 24-25 | Added on Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 08:47 PM

A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby experienced participants pass along knowledge to novices. In a participatory culture, members

The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg)
- Highlight Loc. 46-47 | Added on Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 09:09 PM

the responsibilities of learning at an epistemic moment when learning itself is the most dramatic medium of that change. Technology, we insist, is not what constitutes the revolutionary nature of this exciting moment. It is, rather, the potential for shared and interactive learning

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 121-22 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 09:20 AM

the study of books need not be limited to a particular technology.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 137-38 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 09:25 AM

The staying power of the old-fashioned codex illustrates a general principle in the history of communication: one medium does not displace another, at least not in the short run.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 141-43 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 09:27 AM

The explosion of electronic modes of communication is as revolutionary as the invention of printing with movable type, and we are having as much difficulty in assimilating it as readers did in the fifteenth century, when they confronted printed texts.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 160-62 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 05:20 PM

Yet its past bodes well for its future, because libraries were never warehouses of books. They have always been and always will be centers of learning. Their central position in the world of learning makes them ideally suited to mediate between the printed and the digital modes of communication.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 166-67 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 05:21 PM

Publishers are gatekeepers, who control the flow of knowledge. From the boundless variety of matter susceptible to being made public, they select what they think will sell or should be sold, according to their professional expertise and their personal convictions.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 192-94 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 09:41 PM

correspondence of Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Jefferson—each filling about fifty volumes—and you can watch the Republic of Letters in operation. All four writers debated all the issues of their day in a steady stream of letters, which crisscrossed Europe and America in a transatlantic information network.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 279-80 | Added on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 10:10 PM

When businesses like Google look at libraries, they do not merely see temples of learning. They see potential assets or what they call “content,” ready to be mined.

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 237 | Added on Thursday, December 31, 2009, 12:29 AM

In 1790, the first copyright act—also dedicated to “the encouragement of learning”—followed

The Case for Books (Robert Darnton)
- Highlight Loc. 282-83 | Added on Thursday, December 31, 2009, 12:32 AM

Libraries exist to promote a public good: “the encouragement of learning,” learning “Free to All.”

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 613-18 | Added on Friday, January 08, 2010, 05:44 PM

Most of us intuitively know that we all learn differently from each other—through different methods, with different styles, and at different paces. We remember not being able to pick up a concept at the same time someone else grasped it instinctively. And we remember that occasionally a teacher or parent or another student would explain it in a different way, and it clicked. Or perhaps it just took more time. Other times we figured things out faster than our classmates. We grew bored when the class repeatedly drilled a concept for those who struggled to get it. And most of us had friends who excelled in certain classes but struggled in others. Our experience is that we learn differently.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 645-47 | Added on Saturday, January 09, 2010, 12:10 AM

Gardner defines intelligence: The ability to solve problems that one encounters in real life. The ability to generate new problems to solve. The ability to make something or offer a service that is valued within one’s culture.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 856-57 | Added on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 06:00 PM

computer-based learning is emerging as a disruptive force and a promising opportunity. The proper use of technology as a platform for learning offers a chance to modularize the system and thereby customize learning.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 858-60 | Added on Sunday, January 17, 2010, 11:16 PM

Student-centric learning opens the door for students to learn in ways that match their intelligence types in the places and at the paces they prefer by combining content in customized sequences.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 860-61 | Added on Sunday, January 17, 2010, 11:16 PM

teachers can serve as professional learning coaches and content architects to help individual students progress—and they can be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1263-65 | Added on Monday, January 18, 2010, 04:04 PM

while people have spent billions of dollars putting computers into U.S. schools, it has resulted in little change in how students learn. And most products that the fragmented and marginally profitable educational software industry has produced attempt to teach students in the same ways that subjects have been taught in the classroom.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1401-4 | Added on Monday, January 18, 2010, 04:10 PM

Despite the widespread presence of computers, Maria’s school experience isn’t too much different from her mother’s experience a little over two decades earlier. Whereas her mother did the research through reference books, Maria now does it online; and whereas her mother typed out her project on a typewriter, Maria types it using a word processor. Why haven’t computers brought about a transformation in schools the way they have in other areas of life?

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1412-13 | Added on Monday, January 18, 2010, 04:12 PM

the billions schools have spent on computers have had little effect on how teachers teach and students learn—save possibly to increase costs and draw resources away from other school priorities.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1453-56 | Added on Tuesday, January 19, 2010, 10:17 PM

In the language of disruption, here is what this means: unless top managers actively manage this process, their organization will shape every disruptive innovation into a sustaining innovation—one that fits the processes, values, and economic model of the existing business—because organizations cannot naturally disrupt themselves.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1559-63 | Added on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 05:30 PM

Larry Cuban, who has conducted highly regarded studies on this topic, reports that in early-grade elementary school classrooms, computers serve to sustain the traditional early childhood school model. Computers have become just another activity center for children that they can opt to use in the course of the day. At the computer, they can play such games as “Franklin Learns Math” or “Math Rabbit.” While these games are popular with the children, they do not supplant traditional teaching; instead, teachers use them to supplement and reinforce the existing teaching model.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1564-67 | Added on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 05:44 PM

In middle and high school core academic classes in particular, students report that computers have had little to no impact on the way they learn. Teachers still deliver the instruction. Students use computers primarily for word processing, to search the Internet for research papers, and to play games.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1569-72 | Added on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 05:45 PM

“In the end, both supporters and critics of school technology (including researchers) have claimed that powerful software and hardware often get used in limited ways to simply maintain rather than transform prevailing instructional practices.”

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1588-95 | Added on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 05:49 PM

The sum of these assessments is that traditional instructional practices have changed little despite the introduction of computers and other modern technologies. A class does not look all that different from the way it did a couple of decades earlier, with the exception that banks of computers line the walls of many classrooms. Lecturing, group discussions, small-group assignments and projects, and the occasional video or overhead are still the norms. Computers have not increased student-centered learning and project-based teaching practices. The implementation of computers has not caused any measurable improvements in achievement scores.8 And, most importantly for the purposes of this book, computers have made almost no dent in the most important challenge that they have the potential to crack: allowing students to learn in ways that correspond with how their brains are wired to learn, thereby migrating to a student-centric

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1597-98 | Added on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 05:49 PM

Teachers have implemented computers in the most common-sense way—to sustain their existing practices and pedagogies rather than to displace them.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 1962-64 | Added on Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 10:16 PM

Instead of spending most of their time delivering one-size-fits-all lessons year after year, teachers can spend much more of their time traveling from student to student to help individuals with individual problems. Teachers will act more as learning coaches and tutors to help students find the learning approach that makes the most sense for them.

Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Michael B. Horn)
- Highlight Loc. 2043-44 | Added on Saturday, February 13, 2010, 10:22 PM

If we indeed want to begin teaching subjects to students in ways that correspond to how their minds are wired to learn, it means that the science of assessment will need to evolve significantly.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 306-11 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 03:06 PM

the world has changed so fundamentally in the last few decades that the roles of learning and education in day-to-day living have also changed forever. Though many of the skills needed in centuries past, such as critical thinking and problem solving, are even more relevant today, how these skills are learned and practiced in everyday life in the 21st century is rapidly shifting. And there are some new skills to master, such as digital media literacy, that weren’t even imagined fifty years ago.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 516-20 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 07:24 PM

What is certain is that two essential skill sets will remain at the top of the list of job requirements for 21st century work: • The ability to quickly acquire and apply new knowledge • The know-how to apply essential 21st century skills—problem solving, communication, teamwork, technology use, innovation, and the rest—to each and every project, the primary unit of 21st century work

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 541-43 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 07:26 PM

Education plays four universal roles on society’s evolving stage. It empowers us to contribute to work and society, exercise and develop our personal talents, fulfill our civic responsibilities, and carry our traditions and values forward.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 611-12 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 07:33 PM

Our historic shift to a 21st century Knowledge Age, decades in the making, has forever tilted the balance of what is needed and valued in our work, our learning, and our life. In the 21st century, lifelong learning is here to stay.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 611-12 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 07:33 PM

Our historic shift to a 21st century Knowledge Age, decades in the making, has forever tilted the balance of what is needed and valued in our work, our learning, and our life. In the 21st century, lifelong learning is here to stay.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 611-12 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 07:34 PM

Our historic shift to a 21st century Knowledge Age, decades in the making, has forever tilted the balance of what is needed and valued in our work, our learning, and our life. In the 21st century, lifelong learning is here to

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 622-26 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 10:06 PM

four powerful forces are converging and leading us toward new ways of learning for life in the 21st century: • Knowledge work • Thinking tools • Digital lifestyles • Learning research

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 685-89 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 10:16 PM

With these waves of information and knowledge crashing all around them, how are today’s students going to manage and learn from this deluge? In the past, memorizing the tidy set of known facts, rules, figures, and dates of any school subject was a challenging but necessary part of learning. Today, attempting to memorize the overflowing storerooms of facts and knowledge in any field is clearly impossible. But an immense number of facts can be “remembered” or accessed as needed with a quick Internet search.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 690-92 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 10:16 PM

Yet knowing a field’s core ideas, understanding its fundamental principles, and applying this knowledge to solve new problems and answer new questions are evergreen learning tasks that will never become outdated. These learning skills need to move to the heart of what our schools teach.

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 757-61 | Added on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 10:22 PM

five key findings from research in the science of learning can be used to direct and guide our efforts to reshape learning to meet our times:10 • Authentic learning • Mental model building • Internal motivation • Multiple intelligences • Social learning

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (Charles Fadel)
- Highlight Loc. 818-19 | Added on Sunday, February 21, 2010, 10:02 PM

• Industrial Age education policies designed to deliver mass education as efficiently as possible

Get them Talking! Connecting World Languages and Web 2.0
Presenters: Michelle Olah with Mary Risner
Description:Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, podcasts, digital storytelling and other collaborative tools, provide world language teachers with opportunities for students to create and collaborate in the target language. Come and find out how to use these technologies to get students talking in new and exciting ways!

Presentation Wiki: getthemtalking.wikispaces.com

Check out the Google Doc Notes from Michelle Bourgeois from this presentation.

Technology is extra, making it easier to teach. Easy for the classroom teacher, not “those ed tech persons”

Communication is one of the most important standards to address in the World Language classroom. Can’t memorize, speaking needs to be spontaneous.

Barriers to speaking in the classroom:

• Individual student practice – students do not speak enough
• Pair activities- students off task, hard to monitor and correct errors
• Presentations- take days of class time and other students are not engaged.

There are tech tools that can help  assist stuednts to SPEAK and get more practice!!

• Saves class time
• Make it available to a wider audience

Some tools to use:

• Voki Speaking avatars
  • Pros: easy to use, high students interest, no microphone needed
  • Cons: need student e-mail, time management, need way to present voki
• VocieThread
  • specific vocabulary/grammar practice
  • pronunciation practice- tongue twister practice
  • publishing student projects
• PhotoStory
• MovieMaker
• iPods with microphones
• podcasting

Using Realia in Communcation Task

• use cultural authentic images in your projects
• use pictures of realia in speaking tasks
• Have students make Photo stories based on cultural photos.

Ecuador and Peru Resources and Lesson Plans> Outreach

Technorati Tags: fetc09

These are my links for September 13th from 12:04 to 12:47:

• Tonzr – Truly free MP3 ringtones for the masses – Tonzr is a new web site providing free access to MILLIONS (7,168,988 and counting) of MP3 ringtones, or “realtones”
• My MusicRings -
• Clipmarks :: Firefox Add-ons -
• Clipmarks – What are you finding on the web? – On Clipmarks.com, you can see clips of text, images or video about all sorts of topics that other people find while surfing the web.
• 100 Free Web Tools for Elementary Teachers – Classroom 2.0 -

Now that the Comment Challenge is over (for some,) Michele Martin from the Bamboo Project Blog is posting every week a Mini Challenge for anyone to participate in. What a great way to challenge yourself to little mini projects that allow you to experiment with Web 2.0 tool. Who knows, you might stumble upon something that would help in your students’ learning too?

Here is the introduction to Web 2.0 Wednesday from Michele’s post.

Each Wednesday I’m going to post a Web 2.0 activity for you to try. If you have the time and inclination to do so, then please join in. If you don’t–the activity just doesn’t do it for you or you’re too busy with other thing or whatever–then don’t worry about it. Wait until the next time. This is not, repeat NOT, something to put on your "to do" list and feel badly if you don’t get to. I don’t want to read any posts that say "I’m behind on the Web 2.0 Wednesday activity," because it’s not meant to be that kind of thing. Seriously. This is low pressure learning.

If you do the activity, you can blog about it or not–it’s up to you. If you do choose to blog the activity, save it to del.icio.us with the tag "web2.0wednesday " so we can see your post on the feed page over at the Comment Challenge wiki where I’ll be setting up a Web 2.0 Wednesday page .

So, if you have a blog, but are suffering from writer’s blog or are having trouble coming up consistently with ideas what to blog about, here is your chance. A great way to connect with others who are interested in web2.0 tools and are in the middle of experimenting with creativity and the use of these tools.

Have fun AND make sure you tag your posts and projects, with "web2.0wednesday". That is the only way we can connect your writing, projects, presentations, ideas, etc. to the rest of them.

Technorati Tags: web2.0wednesday

So, I was able to stay on track daily with the Comment Challenge half way through the month of May. Then the final days of school, with millions of other typical "final days of school stuff" happened… and I dropped the ball. Since learning these days can take place asynchronous meaning anytime and anywhere, I am not going to feel too bad and instead of dropping the ball and leaving it there, I am picking it back up and keep going.

Day 16: Go Back and Catch Up on Something – Check

Day 17: Five in Five

You should be nice and relaxed after yesterday, so today we’re going to do something fun. Sue Waters pointed me to a cool little activity on Tony Tallent’s blog called "Five in Five ." The idea is challenge yourself to do 5 comments in 5 minutes, although no scrimping on quality by doing something easy like "I like this post" on five different blogs. This is harder than it sounds because if you’re going to read 5 posts and leave reasonably thoughtful comments on each, it will probably take you longer than 5 minutes (Tony ended up taking 28 minutes to comment on 8 posts). The premise is fun, though.

OK, I tried. In 5 minutes, I was barely able to read one post, let alone comment on five. The time ticker mad me even more nervous. I guess I am not the competition (even against a clock) mentality that many people seem to thrive on. In 5 minutes, I was able to comment on two blogs: Learning is Messy and Larry Ferlazzo ‘s blog. One one, I left an acknowledgment comment, while on the other a "Thank you for all you do" comment. Reasonably thoughtful? …from a thoughtful-polite point of view- Yes. Reasonably thoughtful- thought meaning idea point of view- No. I admit that I am and always will be a slow writing blogger and commenter. I cannot whip out a comment that is thought provoking, full of new ideas and connections at a moments notice. I will always write, re-write, change something here and there, double check and re-read before I hit publish or submit.

Day 18: Analyze the Comments on Your Own Blog- Did this one actually on the 18th of May.

Day 19: Respond to a Commenter on Your Own Blog

This activity is courtesy of Sue Waters who says: If readers have made time to comment on your posts, you should always make sure to respond back (ideally to each reader) in the comments on that post. This is very important for building your blog’s community as it demonstrates that you value your readers and their input.

Commenting back also increases community interaction. Look at how Lee is interacting with her readers on “What Posts Stimulate Readers To Comment?” and while you are there make sure you leave your thoughts on what makes readers comment.

This challenge is actually one that I have focused on for myself during this past month. I have received more comments than ever since this Challenge started. It was also for the first time that I was receiving comments that stirred more conversation. Before most of the comments left on my blog, were comments that were acknowledgments and thank yous for writing a review or tutorial or they were "dead end" (vs. open ended) comments. Few of them required a comment back. I don’t believe that a comments such as I left today for Challenge #17 on Learning is Messy and Larry Ferlazzo ‘s blog require a comment back from the blog authors.

Larry,
Just wanted to let you know that all your work in compiling these great websites is appreciated tremendously. I know how much work and dedication goes into this…

Just because these kinds of comments don’t seem to require a response, does not mean that they are not appreciated or valid.

I have enjoyed tremendously receiving open ended responses or questions that really made me feel I was part of something greater than just writing and documenting for my own pleasure. When I wrote a review of the FlipCamera by PureDigital , I was asked by Kim Cofino and Chris Craft to please try the camcorder out with a Mac. That spurred the following post Flip Camcorder MAC vs PC .

Technorati Tags: comment08

Day 15: Give a Comment Award

At Scott McLeod’s suggestion , for today’s task, you’re going to give out a "Comment Award" to your favorite commenter (or commenters), recognizing them for their contributions to conversation in the blogosphere. You decide the parameters for your award–is it the quality of their comments? Or the questions they ask? Sometimes we value commenters because they challenge us to think or because they can be counted on to create community with other commenters. Whatever your reasons for making the award, today’s your day to recognize the commenters you love the most. Check out Scott’s blog for a Fantastic Commenter badge . Be sure to tag your post with "comment08." If you’re not currently blogging, consider emailing a commenter you enjoy on someone else’s blog. We all like some recognition!

This award is given to one of my co-teachers at my school:Katie Bennett . The reason why I am awarding her the honor, is that she JUMPED IN! She jumped into the conversation. Maybe scared, maybe worried, maybe with "blog/comment fright", but she did it!

Katie has started reading more and more blogs on her own time. She sometimes comes to school and "comments" face to face with me about something she read. Both of us are amazed and instantly charged when we find out that we read the same blog post, about a same project or can finish each other’s sentences by quoting the same blogger who wrote about it.

Now Katie needed to take the same step, away from f2f commenting and onto the bloggersphere.

She did it. She jumped in. The first step is most of the times the hardest. That is why she deserves the FANTASTIC COMMENTER Award.

As of today, May 18th, she has also started her own blog:

Harlequined

Please go and visit her, as she starts out on her journey as a blogger and commenter.

Technorati Tags: comment08

Day 8: Comment on a blog outside of your niche

With limited time in a day and many things to do, we can get into the habit of commenting only on blogs that are related to our niche or specific interests. But this can create a sort of echo chamber effect where we don’t read and engage with information that may challenge our beliefs or our ideas. We then fall into the trap of homophily where we are engaging primarily with people who think and believe what we do.

In today’s challenge, you’re going to find and comment on a blog that is outside of your normal interest areas. If you’re not sure where to start, go to the Technorati Topic Directory and click around some of the topic areas you wouldn’t normally read. Follow the links to some blogs and find a post to comment on. You might want to check out several blogs and conversations to get an idea of how comment sections in other niches differ from the niches you usually operate in. For example, how do the commenters and blogger interact? How do commenters interact with other commenters? What’s the "tone" of those interactions and how do they differ (if at all) from the commenting you usually see.

The blogosphere is vast and there are different cultures of participation that develop in different niches. See what you can learn from these different bloggers and how they engage with their communities. If you blog about what you learn, tag it with the "comment08" tag.

I took the advice and started out by going toTechnorati Topic Directory and clicked on Literature . I ended up on the Happiness Project and was reading the post Six tips for getting yourself to do something you don’t want to do, where I left a comment.

Here are some of the strategies that Gretchen Rubin, the author, of the blog suggests.

1. Put yourself in jail

2. Ask for help .

3. Remember: most decisions don’t require extensive research .

4. Take a baby step .

5. Do it first thing in the morning .

6. Protect yourself from interruption .

Technorati Tags: comment08

Since the Commenting Challenge started, I really have been working hard by commenting on blogs, especially the ones I am visiting for the first time. Since the Challenge started, Langwitches has also received more comments than ever before. I am tracking with Technorati any mention of comment08, as well as receiving Pingbacks on posts on Langwitches.

Twice I have run into a problem now, that I WANTED to comment was not able to or had a hard time.

The first time was on I hope it Works from Ronaldo Lima. His blog is a Blogger account. After typing in my comment in the pop up window, double checking that I was automatically logged in with my Google/Blogger account and hitting the submit button, the comment just would not post and brought me back to the same pop up window. Still with my text in the comment box. Luckily, I had copied the text of my comment to my clipboard before and did not loose it completely.

The second time, I clicked my way through from a pingback to one of my posts to Defining Blogging in Education on Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD . It is a WordPress blog hosted by edblogs.org . I wanted to leave a comment to acknowledge that I had read her thoughtful response.

First I was a little stumped. I had to log in to comment? With what? Then I checked that it was a edublog blog and tried my edublg username/password combination. That did not work and I became unsure of what I could do next to leave my comment. Should I look for a contact form or e-mail address somewhere on the blog? I created an edublog account several months ago and really have not used it much, so I decided to try another username/password combination (maybe the first one I entered was wrong) and voila: I was suddenly logged in and the comment box appeared for me to leave my comment.

BUT … I almost had given up hence leaving without acknowledgment to the blog owner that I had pass through and had appreciated her time and effort she put into writing the blog.

I wonder how many others pass by a blog, would like to leave a comment. but run into a minor a major problem or inconvenience and give up and click on?

• Pop up windows
• Spam protection words not legible or mistyped
• Login in with Google, Open ID, Edublog etc accounts.

If you don’t receive comments on your site… maybe there is a problem in the commenting process. Post a test comment to see if it will appear. Make sure that you are logged out of your administrator account too, when you are testing in order to imitate a visitor to your site.

Make it as easy as you can for someone to leave a comment. Many will move on if there are too many obstacles to overcome.

Technorati Tags: comment08