Today was my first day back in school after my snow day and my etmooc introduction to blogging session when I had resolved to read other people’s blogs and comment on them.

I decided that the best place to start with this new resolution was with my own classes who have been using blogs as reflective online diaries for the last couple of years while doing project work. When I first introduced blogging to my classes I linked all their blogs to my google reader and read them all for a while, commenting on some of them but because the pupils never really commented back and I didn’t encourage them to comment on each other’s blogs, I soon began to feel that it didn’t matter whether I read their posts regularly or commented on them. It was only after the etmooc blogging session, writing some of my own blogs and receiving comments on them that I realised how important it is to feel that someone is reading and commenting on your blog posts.

So during first lesson this morning I showed my class how to access each other’s blogs and make comments on them and the first thing that surprised me was their reluctance to have feedback from each other. Then it struck me that they are just like all of us new bloggers who are scared to death that people won’t find what we have to say interesting and are delighted when people comment positively on our posts.

So then I started making comments on pupil’s blog posts and soon I had pupils saying “miss no one has commented on mine, can you leave a comment” I’m hopeful that once they get used to people commenting on their work, their blog posts will improve in quality and they will also be less fearful of letting other people read their thoughts.

So … I then logged into WordPress and found….lots of comments on the blog I posted last night! What a great feeling ….I spent a long time replying to those comments and then going to read the blogs of the people who had left me comments. I even got around to reading some other random edmooc blogs which I came upon through google +

I can safely say I am all blogged out for today!