Tag: commenting

Sign up for March #28daysofwriting

28 Days of Writing, BloggingPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on Sign up for March #28daysofwriting

Blogging and commenting are like Luke and Leia Skywalker. Blogging comes first (like Luke did – they are twins y’know) but commenting and discussion makes everything better (much like Leia’s influence) – they are lonely when they are apart. If you are keen to get into a writing habit during March sign up for #28daysofwriting.

#28daysofwriting continues in MARCH

I am delighted to keep this momentum rolling with a new round of March sign ups for#28daysofwriting. It is open for those of you keen to get into a writing habit and itching to join the 115 or so writers and educators who are taking part in #28daysofwriting. Add your details below to the signup form for MARCH, we’ll kick things off on 1st of March.

Remember the rules are simple – write about whatever you like, as much as you like, but you have to stop after 28 minutes and you have to stick at it every day for 28 days. #28daysofwriting.

Signup for #28daysofcommenting

We have over a week to go for the first cohort to get through February and this inaugural round of writing. But the more I have been thinking about blogging this month the more I have been considering the Skywalker Effect (yes I am calling it that!) – the lack of commenting. So for those of you keen to stay in the blogging habit consider signing up and committing to #28daysofcommenting.

Same rules apply: every day for the first 28 days of March, read and leave comments on blog posts you come across. Do as much as you can in 28 minutes. No need to hit up new posts everyday you might continue a discussion taking place somewhere as well. One key thing would be to share to your networks, through Twitter and G+ etc, the comment you just left.

“I just commented on … for #28daysofcommenting” sort of thing, you get the idea.

Just a quick signup form to get a sense of numbers really nothing more for now – and we always feel more committed when we have filled out a form.

It works as a nice parallel to the writing challenge – we will have a crew writing everyday and we will have a bunch of supportive people chipping into the discussion too.

Discussion is such an important part of our edublogging community so I hope you will consider taking part and supporting the new bunch of people taking the writing challenge. Really l0oking forward to kicking on with this challenge for month – we have 10 days to get signed up using the forms above. Don’t forget to share this with those people who didn’t quite commit for February – it’s be great to continue to grow the community.

So the hashtag lives on and we now welcome the twin to the edublogging galaxy!

#28daysofwriting

#28daysofcommenting

Replying to Comments for Day 17

28 Days of Writing, BloggingPublished onLeave a Comment on Replying to Comments for Day 17

convo

The more I think about what is next for #28daysofwriting the more I think it will be about commenting on blogs. Tonight I enjoyed the rare pleasure of replying to some on my own blog post from yesterday, “Micro Engagement is Killing our Edublogging Community“. Here are the few I managed in my 28 minutes tonight, take a look at the comment thread on the post for the full discussion:

In reply to johnjohnston

I would take 20 comments instead of 100 RTs anyday. I know which one I gain most value from in terms of adding to the conversation and building on ideas.

I do hope we see the return of the long form – we need to invest in it and tend to it, we need this part of our edu culture to grow back. Whether commenting will do the same, who knows. The more I think about it the more I want to run a 28 days of writing alongside one supporting commenting. I want to see people doing that old thing of “I just commented on…” type social share.

John you pinged me on Twitter with that tool – Known http://known.johnj.info/2015/t…

Looks really interesting and I hope I can discover better ways to draw the conversations together from across the web. Any other ideas would be welcomed.

In reply to Phillip Cowell

I have similar posts @disqus_2IzmJDVjOB around this blog over the years. The content is just consumed. I suppose for me I am not surprised when it is posts that are not needing discussion – when you genuinely invite ideas and see nothing you realise it is fading from our digital space.

In reply to Stephanie

I hope we can do that Stephanie, I think it would be a good follow up too – commenting for a month. Whilst a new bunch go through the writing month too – what do you think of that? So you have a crew doing the March writing days and a crew signed up to a month of commenting everyday.

In reply to Monika

Thanks Monika I think a focus on discussion and commenting is a good next step – in many ways it is much harder than just writing your own content. Engaging in meaningful ways though comments takes a different skill, we have to assimilate the original content and share our challenges and questions.

In reply to Christine McIntosh

I think there is lots of room for better commenting tools to be developed. Just had a search through some blog plugins for WordPress and there is not that much. Disqus is in fact a pretty solid tool compared to what else is there. Sorry you lost a comment, always painful, I have made it a habit now whenever I am commenting to copy anything I have written before hitting submit. Saved me many times.

In reply to Andrew Giddings

Thanks Andrew – yeah that thing about RSS readers has been something I have long been dissatisfied about. The experience of reading is nice, say in Feedly, but having to move out of that to comment always feels clunky. I would love to see that solved in some way.

I appreciate that conversations about the things we publish may occur elsewhere, but unless that dialogue or the ideas developed is fed back to the blog author in some way it goes unnoticed. For example if a long discussion occurs on Twitter or in a Fb group without the author they cannot learn as well. Always good to loop people back into discussion so that they can continue to learn too.

(Thanks to Dave for commenting just as I was posting – I will get to your comment too!)

Micro Engagement is Killing Our Edublogging Community

28 Days of Writing, Blogging, DiscussionPublished on48 Comments on Micro Engagement is Killing Our Edublogging Community

One of the elements I have noticed that has changed in out edublogging community is the number of comments that are added to blog posts. The lack of discussion and further conversation is something I have missed from the blogging experience. Writing and reflecting upon my own practice is great in itself, but the ensuing discussions that occurred as a result of sharing often helped deepen my understanding or challenge how I was thinking. This depth of engagement seems to be a fading part of our writing community.

Since starting #28daysofwriting I have been able to re-ignite my reading and consumption of other people’s thinking through the blog posts that have been shared. I have been grateful for the few comments that have been added to my own blog posts so far this month, but am relatively surprised by the lack commenting and engagement I see around the education blogging community.

As my colleague and friend Ewan puts it in his latest post:

given the number of comments left on the first 14 days of this 2015 writing adventure compared to the flowing discussions one might have seen 10 years ago, I’m not sure anyone cares about many blog posts any more.

The engagement from over 110 educational bloggers for #28daysofwriting would suggest that it is still a viable format for reflection. But whether we care enough about other blogs is another thing.

Perhaps this is to do with the growing number of blogs that are active and the quality and breadth of blogging tools we have at our disposal. It would stand that an increase in the amount of posts that are shared and the number of educational blogs, would challenge the number of discussions that can be started. Maybe it is not that people do not care about blog posts but they are much more likely to be using that energy on their own blog.

I made the following diagram to help me think this through.

blog post engagement

There is nothing wrong with the amber lit retweeting and sharing, but for many people we are sharing in an attempt to have the most impact on others. The micro engagement that occurs as people share without reading and, reposting content without engaging any further, is much more prevalent than the more in depth discussions of 10 years ago.

Aaron mentioned in a comment on a post the other day that the rise of the mobile browsing experience is also another reason why people do not comment as much anymore.

At the macro level, the full realisation of a blog post’s impact, teachers think differently after reading something and act differently as a result (with their colleagues or with their class). I have been fortunate enough to be able to share ideas that have had such an impact. The usual way I have learned about such an effect is by reading other blog posts, as teachers reflect on their version of things and how they have adapted my original idea.

Of course we need content to inspire and challenge us, so we need educators writing about their experiences in the classroom. I want more and more people using blogging as a reflective tool and practice. Perhaps what we need is a focus on discussion, on building on each other’s ideas and then reflecting ourselves. And maybe it is this closing of the loop that is the most powerful.

What do you think? Is this micro engagement something that is eroding the discussions present in the community or are they simply happening elsewhere? What’s your take on it?

On a post lamenting the lack of commenting it is of course now mandatory to leave a comment 😉