Week 2: Let’s comment!
An important part of the Student Blogging Challenge is connecting with students and other classes by reading posts and leaving comments.
Comments allow you, and your readers, to engage in discussions, share thoughts and connect with your blog.
Most new bloggers find publishing posts easy and commenting harder! Your bonus activity this week is to learn more about commenting and improve your commenting skills!
What makes a good comment?
Comments transform your blog from a static space to an interactive community. Commenting is one way a blogger can create conversations.
Your readers leave a comment that hopefully asks questions (which encourage conversation), you reply back to their comments on your blog, then visit their blog to read their posts and engage with them on their blog.
The better your comment that more chance you have in creating conversations.
Start by watching either of the following two videos on Commenting.
Watch Mrs Yollis’s ‘How to Write a Quality Comment‘. You can also watch it on Vimeo if YouTube is blocked in your School District.
Watch Nicolas Weiss’s Leaving High Quality Blog comments video if you are a high school student.
Now visit Huzzah’s Commenting Guideline to learn some more commenting tips.
Important tips:
- Refer to Adding a comment support documentation if you are unsure how to add a comment.
- Comments may be moderated on your blog. Remember to check your Comments folder, and comment spam folder, to approve any pending comments.
- Include the url (address) in your comment when you leave a comment on another blogger’s post so the blogger can visit your blog and comment.
Below is an example of a comment from Huzzah’s blog that shows how to include your blog URL in your comment.
Activity 1: Leave a comment on this post.
Each week the best posts published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in our Flipboard magazine.
To check your posts we need you to leave a comment with a link to your post on this blog whenever you finish a weekly activity.
So your first activity is to practice leaving a comment below with a link to your post for an activity you’ve completed this week or last week.
Here is an example from Ayla last week:
Hi Ms. W,
I have just finished this week’s blogging challenge by uploading my avatar and making my about me page! Here is the link: http://aylaz13.edublogs.org/about-me/
So far blogging I have enjoyed creating my blog and I hope to get lots of comments
Thanks
~Ayla
http://aylaz13.edublogs.org
http://huzzah.edublogs.org
Activity 2: Practicing commenting on a class blog
Mrs Smith has published an excellent activity that guides you through commenting, learning to read student posts and practicing comments.
Visit Mrs Smith’s I’m New Here post to work through the tasks in her post and then leave a comment on her post.
Activity 3: Write a post, create a video or create a poster about commenting.
Might be tips to get more visitors, guidelines for acceptable comments on your blog, examples of good and bad comments – think outside the square. Remember you don’t have to approve all comments. It is your blog; send some to the trash and if it is a company trying to get you to visit their blog to buy something, then label it as spam.
Here are some links to commenting guidelines written by students and classes. Class in New Zealand, grade 11/12 class in USA, Huzzah class blog in Canada, Abbey has a blogging guideline page, Mrs Allen created a poster about commenting, Shaffer writers, WarriorKat uses lots of visuals in her guidelines, Sophie had a great post, the Blogging Frogs have some great tips, Cole wrote about commenting
Activity 4: Visit other student or class blogs
Visit 4 other blogs on the lists above the header area. Leave a quality comment on one post on each blog. Might be the About Me page or another post you found interesting. Write a post on your blog mentioning who you visited, which post you left a comment on and why, then include the comment you left. Hint: make sure you copy the comment before you hit the submit button.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
There will be two posts this week so this one has been published earlier than normal.