31 Day Comment Challenge Begins
5 05 2008As part of my own personal professional development, I first entered the blogosphere. And I have gone through many phases since the start of this journey. Now, it is time to become a better commenter! So my Sunday night post is officially dedicated to progress as I work to complete the assigned task each day.
Day 1: Self-Audit–
- How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week? UMMM-Honestly- it is slim to none!
- Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?I just recently learned you could track your comments, SO How? I am taking suggestions…an sure I will end up using coComment, and would take any suggestions or reasoning for why or how I should use this information once I have access to it! Can you see why now, I feel as if I need some personal PD in this area!
- Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week? If I do comment on blogs is is on those that are just starting out like me, because I do know that it is powerful when and a nice feeling when you do get comments.After reading Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments, I plan to focus on first adding comments that add to the discussion and lend specifically a new “piece” to the puzzle/conversation.
Day 2- Comment on a New Blog! -
The task today is to comment on a new blog! Well, I have to decided to post a comment I read often but dare not leave a comment. Since I have not been an active commenter I feel I have a lot to make up for…so it will be important to return to those blogs that have inspired me the most to create my own blog and comment, comment,comment.
Day3- Sign Up for a Comment Service Tracking Service–
I have to say that Day 3 has been a challenge for me due to technical issues. I tried to install coComment an then had a complete meltdown of Firefox, but I finally got it working but have chosen to use the bookmarklet instead! It seems to working much better for my situation! I am absolutely thrilled with the widget that allows the most current comments to be viewed from the sidebar. Since my primary target audience is the teachers I service within my district, maybe as they see others comment they too will want to add their words of wisdom! I am finishing this post on Monday afternoon due to the technical difficulties I had last night and will continue to work to catch up on my daily tasks!
Now that I have a comment tracking feature, I am excited to get a variety of comments so that I can see my widget grow and track interesting conversations!
I am curious about your comment of not daring to leave a comment on a blog you regularly follow. It’s clear you have something to say and if the opportunity is there, and you have some words, you should really say it and engage in the conversation.
From time to time, there is talk of the “inner circle” of edubloggers and that comes from people feeling as if they are either not invited into the conversation or out of their league. But, in my experience, many bloggers welcome new comments from new people and would love to expand the audience for interaction.
So, I hope you feel confident enough next time.
Take care
Kevin
My response to “Reasoning for why or how I should use this information once I have access to it!” — it means when I’ve written a comment if there are later comments, especially by the blogger, I’m notified by their comments and can choose to come back to discuss further.
For example if this wasn’t what you were really asking you might say thanks Sue but I really meant ….. and may further clarify. Which means I might come back and say okay well what about this.
I take the RSS feed from cocomment and have it feed into Google Reader for easy notification.