Day 2 – Ok, so it is really about day 12 and I’m a little behind. I can’t bear to miss the activites and so here is my work on
catching up. I’ve finally been off posting on other blogs that I haven’t visited yet. I haven’t done a lot so far but it is really getting out of the house here that is important. I did also manage to add a cocomment widget to my site so that I can track those comment I’ve made abroad. So that’s Day 3 covered too except that it wasn’t just joining cocomment that I needed to do, I still had to read Sue’s excellent post about various ways to track blogs. I learned a lot from that. Now I’ve joined the comment challenge group and I’ve figured out how to track a whole network of conversations.
Then, a little out of order as I often tend to be, I went looking for a blog post I didn’t agree with. I didn’t get very far before I found myself on Hey-monkeybrain looking at some rather silly but intriguing debate questions. It wouldn’t have been hard to find something I disagreed with there as the whole site is set up not for blogging so much as debating. An interesting tourist site for sure. But rather than posting I found myself needing to go back to drdyers site from where I had been referred to hey-monkeybrain, to post a question. (Day 4 taken care of except that it wasn’t a great questions, but hey, I’ll get better.) So still working on Day 5, finding what I disagree with, I managed to skip ahead to Day 6. After responding to another comment I came back and read that there is netiquette for doing that. (Who knew? I’ll get it right next time.) Day 7, I’ve done a few days ago almost right after my very steep learning leap into this challenge. I may be ready to tackle a repeat of that one soon. So, tomorrow I’ll move on to finding something outside my niche, considering the allow/not allow comments debate and my own comment audit.
You know what it’s all about learning at your own pace. I think a lot of us are behind and many more are commenting and not officially participating.
BTW I love the color scheme and design of your site. My husband just walked by and he said the same thing.
That is so true that it is about learning at your own pace isn’t it. I guess that is what I’m loving about blogging generally. I can be here and participate or go away and ignore it. When I come back, it will be here and I can pick back up where ever I want. There are so many experts to help guide for any possible tangent I may go off on. It is really a wonderful way of learning.
Thanks for the comment on the color thing. I’ve been wondering about that recently because I’ve been to so many blogs in the last little while that are much more black on white. They tend to look cleaner and clearer to my atrophying brain. Interesting though that some of the current research says that the use of the internet is changing our color preferences for reading text. Actually, this is for the younger generation, not so much for me although it would apply for those of us who spend far too many hours online. So, I’ve persisted with keeping it colorful. I’ll find the refererence on the research in case anyone is interested. The turtle header is from a picture I took on Isla Mujeres in Mexico.
My question right now is around tracking tags. I’ve had my students set up blogs and so that we can find each other they’ve all added a similar tag to their blog. I had thought it was going to be easy to track from that, but I fear I’ve missed a step. Any advice on that would be great.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve just started the comment challenge! This is actually my first comment in the challenge. I don’t know if I’ll manage to catch up and do all the challenges as I’m just starting to seriously blog, but I’ll still learn in the process.
As per your website design, I think the best thing is that there is variety. If every blog were black and white, we’d all get pretty bored!
Welcome to the challenge. I’m learning tons! I’m reading more blogs and really getting more and more involved in commenting. Last week I had a whole class of mine start blogs because I’m excited about the potential for community. Like Karen Greenwood Hanke says in the video I just embedded in my blog post today, “Start with the teaching. If I want my students to be making global connections then I’m going to give the tools to my teachers first and provide them with opportunities to connect with other teachers around the world or other teachers around the country.” I think blogging can do that in a way that teachers can manage with their limited time. I like that it isn’t as immediate as chatting or more online/inyourface technologies that connect us more in real time. There is a definite advantage to the lag and delay of blogging, commenting, responding, replying. For those of us who are trying to keep some balance in life, this is preferable. Plus I find it allows me time to think. Nothing with blogging has to be immediate. I like that.
Congratulations on adding the coComment widget, this will allow you to track all of your comments, a concern you mentioned on your post. If you have any other questions let me know.