Etiquette and expectations for blogging and commenting has always been part of my blogging journey with my students.  Being thoughtful as both a writer and reader are important.  I love that my students start to think of themselves as writers, but more importantly, I love the community they build through the process of joining the conversation with each other through feedback.  Their virtual community has transferred into the classroom itself – bringing the students together as a family. Blogging has allowed our walls to literally and figuratively disappear as the students work together to inspire, encourage, respect, and validate each other.   Here is an example of a student’s comment from our student blog:

Dear Abdullah:

This is an amazing piece of writing. I actually enjoyed reading it and liked the information that it gave me. Your first line on the second paragraph sticks to me as being honest and completely true. One question i I wanted to ask you was why you thought that children now are becoming less innocent? I think that this peace is nearly flawless, but you few tiny mistakes like where in one place your sentence sort of does not make sense, “Ignorance is an actuality in society, which is traditionally instilled negatively within the hearts and minds of people in today’s society,” if you did not include the “in today’s society” at the end, then i think that this sentence would flow better.
Overall amazing.

Sincerely,
Ashar
P.S thanks for commenting on my first blog

So, I have been very happy thus far, but I am ready for next steps to improve our process.  Thanks to Sue Water’s Thursday session on Advanced Blogging through etmooc, I have had some “aha” visions for my next steps with my students:

1. We need to learn to embed pictures, music, videos, and links in their blogs.  It makes their work more interesting, inviting, honest, and it joins the conversation with the rest of the world.
2. We need to learn to write engaging, creative, thoughtful and relevant titles.
3. We need to respond and link to each others’ work to further the discussion.
4. We need to be grateful to those who take the time to read our work and comment.
5. We need to take commenting to the next level.  We already write to our blogger in the form of a letter, we offer positive and a constructive criticism, but I want to add the expectation of furthering the discussion.  (see my ideas in the box below)
6. Finally, we need to be more mindful of “polished” work; we don’t take the time to structure, revise, edit, or embed with their posts.

So, if you have any comments, questions, feedback, models, suggestions, or if you just want to join the conversation on this subject, I look forward to it!

Cheers,

Pamela

ETIQUETTE and EXPECTATIONS for COMMENTING

Filed under: Blogging, ETMOOC Tagged: Blog, Citizenship, Comments, Conversation, Etiquette, expectations, Sue Waters