I knew from personal experience that commenting on blogs is a crucial aspect of blogging conversations for achieving the greatest learning. Trouble is factors often limit people’s commenting practices so they don’t experience this learning and fail to appreciate it’s value.
Kim Cofino, Silvia Tolisano, Michele Martin and I hoped a challenge that involved a month of focused commenting would help participants appreciate it’s importance and the benefits of learning as a community.
The behind the scenes tasks have left me little time to write my own reflections so I thought today I would play catch up using Comment Challenge Day 7: Reflect on What You’ve Learned So Far but reflect the three lessons I’ve learned from my experiences so far in terms of being a coordinator of the Challenge.
#1 Commenting & Participation in Online Communities
It didn’t surprise to me that many participants response to “How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?” was rarely. Concerns of saying the wrong thing or feeling their comments mightn’t be worthy were the main factors why they rarely commented. This surprised me because I assumed time was the main issue since majority are bloggers and use twitter.
90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute)
9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time
1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs
The 4 Cs are an attempt to illustrate the fact that most people appear to operate predominantly in one or other of the phases in their journey to becoming online citizens, and that there is some sort of progression that characterises this growth.
Lots of food for thought with no answers but definitely a greater understanding, after 7 days of observations, of why people do/don’t comment on blogs.
#2 Technorati Continues To Mock Me
With over 100 adult participants and 12 student groups (over 200 students) , combined with the desire to encourage the community aspect, an RSS feed from Technorati was the easiest method for helping participants easily find each other and interact (we have the feed coming into our wiki). Best way to do this is to agree on a common tag term prior to the event.
Mistake #1 - Make sure the tag term is unique!
(DUH Sue!) I should have done a technorati basic search for the tag term comment08 because unfortunately test comments from cocomment’s blog were picked up with this search term.
Mistake #2 - Test Technorati easily picks up the tags prior to starting such a large project
After quite a bit of research over the weekend I discovered that technorati wasn’t picking up posts unless:
Participants had joined and claimed their blog’s at Technorati
Technorati hasn’t been pinging their blog (some of the blogs hadn’t been pinged for 90 days which meant we weren’t seeing any of the posts they were writing)
Also I discovered we had to refine the Technorati tag search to ensure it found all posts.
If we had known all this prior we could have given more detailed instructions to participants on how to tag (for each of the different blogging platforms) and for ensuring their tags were picked up by technorati.
True I did know this but have been pleasantly surprised, with the right circumstances, how rapidly this can develop considering it has only been 8 days. It’s impossible for me to showcase all the examples however I think what happening with video and video commenting — and the increased connections as a results — is pretty cool.
Would love to hear about the connections you are making, and the community learning that is happening, as a result of the Challenge. Also your thoughts on online participation and commenting (and off course how you are going ).
Let’s be honest I need all the help I can get. My weight has crept up . And like all woman I don’t like to feel fat! Thankfully I’ve got great friends in Christy Tucker and Christine Martell that decided to help me with my weight problem.
Apparently the weight issues happened during my blog cleaning when I changed my blog image header. (Sheesh and I thought cleaning helped you lose weight!).
Does it seem like the header image leads your image off the right side of the page though? Look at the line of the rocks and the direction the person is facing–it seems to all be pointing off to the right. I wonder if you flipped the image horizontally if it would work better. You’d have to move the text somewhere else, perhaps, but with the image flipped it would draw your eye right down to the content.
Just a thought–you might want to check with Christine Martell or someone else more visually inclined. It’s possible I’m simply imagining things!
Christine’s definitely the person to ask as she’s amazing with visuals. And I’m extremely grateful because she has done an incredible analysis of my new image header while explaining all visual aspects of what the image was saying, the messages it sends the readers and options to improve.
Make the time to read Chrisine’s Does my header make my blog look fat? post (and leave her a comment thanking her for helping me)! There is so much to appreciate when using visuals on blog sites and in posts; Christine’s excellent at making you consider the issues.
Impact of Images and Photos in Blog Posts
Images and photos enhance blog posts when used correctly but can have the opposite affect when used badly. These posts Christine wrote are must reads for understanding the issues better:
Also make sure you check out Gary Barber’s excellent post on the Psychology of Colour. Fantastic post that explains the different emotions invoked by various colours.
My Solution To The Weight Problem
Well I decided to change my image header based on her re-design of my image however Bret Treasure has made excellent comments (read his comments as he makes really good points) on Christine’s post about the image I’ve chosen isn’t relevant to the blog content or engaging. So it may be a case the issue continues to be debated as the weight issue may not be solved
Thanks everyone who has been trying to help me with my weight problem and my blog makeover. I really appreciate your help.
Don’t you get frustrated with mess? I do! But I’ll procrastinate how I can clean up the mess until I can’t take it anymore. Only then will I take action.
Today was my blog cleaning day! I’ve finished what I can but still not happy (are we ever totally happy with blog cleaning?). Anyway let me show you what I’ve done so you can give me your thoughts
Importance Of Blog Cleaning
Unfortunate fact of life, we do judge a book by it’s cover! People are more likely to both read our posts and subscribe to our blog if it’s pleasing to their eyes.
We need our blogs to immediately engage first time readers, highlight that we offer great information that they will like, so they want to subscribe to our blog.
I use Cutline theme for my blog because I want a clean template, with pages along the top and ability to add a tagline.
The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.
Unfortunately Cutline doesn’t include a tagline but it does include a customisable header which means I can add the tagline to the image in my blog header.
But I’m not the most creative person so wasn’t happy with my image. Hoping my new image header with a person staring at the ocean and my tagline Helping Others With Web 2.0, e-learning and m-learning are better.
This is what my previous header looked like:
Decluttered My Sidebar
Sidebar clutter is bad because it can make your blog look messy and pulls readers attention away from what you want them to do (read your posts)!
I sort of view sidebar widgets as being partly for the blog owner and partly for their readers. So I guess if they make you happy then that’s what counts. I don’t see them as distracting, but then I’m a total global spatial and my mind is probably full of widgets.
But some of the clutter had to go!
1. Removed my blogroll
Bloggers often feature a list of their favourite blogs in the sidebar of their blog; this list is commonly called a blogroll and these are important to edubloggers. One of the reasons for adding a blogroll is so your readers can use this list to locate other blogs worth reading — you are saying “these are some blogs I like - which are worth checking out!”
Trouble is my blogroll list overwhelms my side bar so I’ve relocated it to a page on my blog. Sure some won’t be happy with this but it was that or no blogroll. And now have a pretty link to it
I’ve added a Google translator widget to my blog to make it easier to read my posts in words other than English as I have many readers that English is not their main language.
I also tried to find an Aussie slang translator but had no success. My readers definitely need this! As Kate Quinn pointed out in comments I used this aussie slang “main drag to refer to the main road through the town” in a post.
I’ve changed the heading of my categories widget to “Some of the things I write about” because I felt the word Categories didn’t have much meaning to many of my readers.
As a blog surfing addict I like the cocoment reader widget - if something you have commented on else where catches my attention then I can follow it and explore further. I also know can come back to your site and follow other comments of interest - so I like that widget
So I’ve adjusted the size of the widget and changed my cocomment widget’s title to “My Comments on Others Blogs.”
6. Where I Share
I wanted to add a Show Yourself Widget like Vicki Davis has on her blog (located in her left sidebar under the title of “Where I Share”). Unfortunately this is one code I can’t seem to embed in this blog. So instead I’ve added an About Me Widget from MyBlogLog but it’s not really what I wanted.
If you know of a better widget please let me know
Added A Visitors Map
While I was busy decluttering my sidebar I couldn’t help looking at more widget to add.
I fell in love with Ronaldo Lima Frappr visitor’s map and had to have one. Absolutely no logic in my desire and since it caused clutter I’ve added it to my About page — which makes completely no sense!
For all those waiting for me to post my true thought on Facebookthis video sums them all up but my words are a bit stronger. Perhaps not a good idea to show it to your kids .
As promised it’s time for me to share what we did on our holiday last week.
But since 68 % of readers of this blog and 87 % of The Edublogger readers (the other blog I author) don’t live in Australia I thought it’s appropriate to start with some background on where I live so you understand where I went on holidays. If you’re interested — here’s comparison of % visitors by country, for top 20, for both blogs using Google Analytics statistics.
Please note I’ve uploaded the photos directly to this post to make it easier for readers who read my posts from work because Barry reminded me that many school districts block Flickr. I haven’t added the videos however I’m happy to upload the videos directly to my blog that I have on Flickr (shows the fish and the kangeroos) — just let me know.
About Western Australia
It’s a long way from anywhere!
But it’s the largest state in Australia even though some from the Eastern States of Australia consider our State a “backward” civilisation due to Perth’s (our capital city) isolation. I should also add it’s the wealthy State of Australia due to massive mining and resource boom. The image on the right shows a size comparison of Australia with USA and UK (click on image to enlarge).
A widely-held belief is Perth is “the world’s most isolated capital city” because the closest major capital to Perth is Adelaide (2,800 km away) which takes three hours by commercial flight. Unfortunately Honolulu in Hawaii is more isolated (nearest capital city of Majuro in the Marshall Islands is 3,673 km away). I’m thinking Honolulu sounds nice .
Western Australia is composed of distinct geographical regions each with their own unique climate, features and tourist attractions. It would take me forever to talk about the wonders of each region so click on areas on this map to learn more — I’m based in Perth.
Our Holiday In Relation To Perth
Our holiday was spent in the South West of our State in the Busselton, Dunsborough and Margaret River region (250 km south of Perth). This is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the State due to it’s fabulous beaches, surf areas, vineyards, tuart forests and fine foods. It feels like every km you travel in this region there is another vineyard or more fine foods to eat topped off with a swim at the beach.
Here are some of the highlights:
Favourite Tourist Attraction
Definitely Underwater Observatory that they’ve built to the seafloor at the end of the Busselton jetty. As you walk down the Underwater Observatory, 8 metres to the ocean floor, you see the different marine life, in their natural environment, that exists at each level.
The Busselton jetty is the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere stretching 1.841 kms into the ocean. Construction commenced in 1853 and it was used for commercial shipping from 1865 to 1971.
It’s a lovely walk out to the Underwater Observatory (1.8 km) but not so much fun walking back in a thunderstorm in the rain (click on the photo of us walking back to see how far from shore we are).
Classic Moments
Always helps if you’re clear in providing directions.
Here is my hubby’s great instructions for locating him when I arrived after driving for 3 1/2 hours:
We are in Dunsborough at coffee shop (no idea of it’s name) near bakery in main drag.
I’m not sure anyone could interpret those directions?
Especially since there was several bakeries, coffee shops and main drags in Dunsborough and I’d never been there before.
Although I should be grateful– he could have always given me a map link like this so I ended up in the ocean .
Meanwhile you have my excellent directions:
Just keep going straight and it will take us to Cape Naturalist Lighthouse.
Well I got that one totally wrong and we ended up at Yallingup totally missing the Lighthouse
Honestly I thought the map showed the road we were on as a straight road that went to the lighthouse .
Favourite Moment
Has to be spotting the huge mobs of kangaroos (mob is the term used for a large group of kangaroos) in farmer’s paddocks next to the road.
Unfortunately I scared the first mob by yelling too loudly when we got out of the car but managed to video the mob I saw the next day. The farmers definitely wouldn’t have liked them in their fields.
While these kangaroos look lovely — you definitely don’t want to hit them with a car especially if you don’t have a roo bar. This is why I was very quiet filming them on the second day as there were probably more than 50 of them right next to a really busy road. Here is my video if you want to watch them.
Funniest Moment
We went away on holidays with several family groups.
Just about everyday the men would go fishing, for 3+ hours, and return home empty handed (I believe that is called conservation?). Sorry they did catch one fish in 7 days .
Finally in frustration on the second last day I took my hubby fishing to show him how it’s done. Here’s a photo of the fish I caught — which taste much nicer . He also commented how much more fun it was fishing with me.
Although I think it’s much easier to grab fish out of the tanks at my work
Craziest Moment
Couldn’t sleep first night managing to wake hubby who then walked through cabin and when switched on lights blew them all out for the entire cabin. So with no lights (i.e. unable to get up to read) and not able to sleep I hide my PDA under my blankets (to keep light from waking my hubby) and played on the Internet.
Frustrating Moment
My hubby was responsible for booking the holiday accommodation. He went under guidance of our friend who organised the holiday and has been to the particular location about 5 times.
All I shall say on the matter is my hubby is never, ever, ever booking accommodation ever again!
Our cabin was falling down and not very nice inside. Our other friends (not the ones who gave hubby guidance) stayed at the same location, just one cabin behind us, in a lovely brick cabin with fantastic furniture and paid $100 more.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Definitely did a lot more than I covered in this post — which is way tooooo long. Here are the photos on Flickr that includes all the videos and lots more sights.
But first let me share some cool tips I’ve learnt while getting ready to write about my vacation – I’ll tell you about our holiday adventures in my next post.
If you post a smaller version of a photo in your blog post, but hyperlink to the larger version of the photo when readers click on the photo in the post they are taken to the larger version of the photo for a more detailed view.
Click this photo I took on our vacation to see the effect . Here are my step-by-step instructions (which I’ve posted to Flickr) for how to do this in your own posts.
Everyone’s been talking about how Flickr now allows you to upload videos provided that they are limited to 90 seconds in length, and less than 150MB in filesize. I like the idea of uploading my videos to Flickr since I already use the site for sharing photos.
Using the video setting on my digital camera to create the videos is an issue because the videos ranged up to 93 MB for a 90 sec video which isn’t ideal for uploading videos especially at an Internet Cafe. Ideally it’s best to keep videos less than 30 MB for uploading.
My solution to reduce video file size quickly was edit using MovieMaker and save Movie File as Video for Broadband (512 kbps).
Off course this got me thinking how does Flickr control the time limit on movies you can upload? Well it seemed obvious to me that they couldn’t and can only control by file size. So I edited and combined my photos and movies to create a 3 minute video which I then successfully uploaded to Flickr.
Below is the video (which is hosted on Flickr) that you can check out. What do you think of video quality?
If you are reading my post in a feed reader like Google Reader or Bloglines the video will probably not be displayed so you need to check out on my blog or at Flickr.
My Map Of Our Holiday
I’ve been waiting for a long time for the opportunity to create a holiday map with photos and this was a perfect opportunity.
The easiest option is to Geotag photos on Flickr (geotagging in Flickr is the process of adding location information to your photos by dropping them onto the World map — here are my instructions on how to geotag using Flickr).
However I had two issues with Flickr geotagging:
Flickr uses Yahoo maps that don’t zoom in sufficiently to show roads and many towns in Western Australia — which is really annoying
You can only link to the map and not embed
So instead I created a My Maps using Google Maps that:
I can embed into my blog post
allows me to embed my photos from Flickr into the map (unfortunately it didn’t like the embed video code for the Flickr Videos).
Here are my step-by-step instructions (which I’ve posted to Flickr) for how to create your own My Maps using Google Maps. You will need to create a Google Account to create my maps (it’s best to create a gmail account to do this).
Below is my map that I’ve embedded in this post. You will probably need to check it out on my blog if you are using a feed reader.
Click on the link icon at the top of My Maps and you will find the embed code.
In your post click on Code Tab then paste the embed code in the desired location and then press publish straight away.
NOTE: Make sure you’ve completely finished writing your post before adding My Maps embed code as you can’t edit the post AT ALL after the code has been added.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Hope you like some of the cool tips I’ve shared.
What are your thoughts on Flickr videos? People have differing views on videos on Flickr — check out Beth’s post and it’s comments.
Do you know of a quicker and easier way to create a Holiday map for sharing with friends?
Nope sorry I’m still not back from holidays . And I’m sure I’m having a great time — I will let you know about it next week.
One of the trouble with blogs is you often have good content, that’s worth a read, but it becomes hidden away and new readers miss out (image by Amanda Bel).
Having a “Most Valuable Posts” widget like Vicki Davis does on Cool Cat Teacher blog or link to a page on “My Favourite Posts!” as Larry Ferlazzo does on Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… are an excellent idea for bringing these posts to the attention of readers.
Unfortunately I’ve run out of room on my sidebar at the moment and may have to face choosing a new theme.
Meanwhile here are my most popular posts based on pageviews:
My Advice On Being A More Effective Blogger!
The title says it all. I really need to follow it up with a more detailed post on tips for better blog posts (similar to the information I’ve written in the section of this post on my personal pet hates but with examples of what I mean).
Many bloggers use several different stats counters on their blog and with an overwhelming amount of information it’s hard to work out which one to use– Google analytics is definitely one that you should install.
Al Upton has been blogging with his students for the past five years and this year Al Upton decided to take student blogging, with his new group of miniLegends, to the next level and invited the educational blogging community to mentor a mini. Unfortunately there was concerns relating to perceived risks of cyberstalking and online predators with the end result being that he was asked to close his Al Upton’s MiniLegend class blog while the concerns were investigated.
Situations like what happened to Al have happened, and will happen to other educators, which is why Adocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety and Success has been started — focus of this group will be to coordinate actions to educate the general public and education decision makers on the importance of educating students on digital citizenship. You can join the group here! I will talk about this more next week when I get back
Why Does Technorati Mock Me?
If you’re a blogger than it’s really important to understand how blog search engines work to ensure your blog and posts are being found. This post explains how Technorati and Google Search searches blog posts and why you need to claim your blog on Technorati.
FINAL THOUGHT
Good luck. I hope these posts help you; there are more I could have added but that will keep you going for now. I’m always looking for ideas for blog posts so please let me know
But today is a special day that I can’t let it pass without saying thanks for being loyal readers and I ‘m thinking of all of you.
You see today is Mobile Technology in TAFE blog’s first birthday and I’ve now being blogging for a year. As the birthday girl it means I get a wish (image by imedagoze).
Here’s my wish
I spend a lot of time supporting other bloggers, helping them and leaving comments on posts (especially new bloggers) but this week can’t (image by TIO).
So can you:
Visit some blogs today (or this week) and write a comment on their posts to let them know that someone cares what they write.
Leave a comment on this post with links to posts you suggest other readers check out plus tell us about some of the posts you commented on and why.
It’s been an incredible year and an amazing journey so far. Persistence, patience and commitment helped.
Here’s my year in reflection.
My First Months
My blogging abilities increased considerably from my early days; check out my first post. I wrote 29 posts in my first month of blogging with 40 comments and had many posts with no comments. Now I written 238 posts, for this blog, and have 1,474 comments.
I still remember the feeling of Why continue to write a blog? when you don’t receive any comments and feel like you’re talking to yourself. I’m sure there are a lot of people that are glad I didn’t give up — so don’t you give up .
And yes commenting is important to me — I spend a lot of time commenting on other people’s blogs and on my own posts because I’ve made the decision I’d rather support the community and other bloggers than write lots of posts. The interactions within comments and linking between posts is where the greatest learning happens.
Thanks to all my readers for being loyal readers. And thanks to everyone who takes the time to write comments and/or links to my posts — I really do appreciate it and you’ve all helped so much with my personal learning.
31 Day Project
My blogging ability dramatically improved when I participated in the 31 Days to Build A Better Blog Project with an amazing team of bloggers from around the World. Thanks to each and everyone of you (the participants) from the 31 Day Project and my readers who supported me during the project.
I don’t believe this blog would have been a finalist in the 2007 Edublog Awards in three separate categories: Best Individual Blog; Best New Blog and Best Ed Tech Support blog if I hadn’t done the 31 Day Project. Thanks to my readers for nominating my blog for the awards.
The Edublogger
It’s been a great honor to now also blog on The Edublogger — a blog set up by Edublogs dedicated to helping educational bloggers with using emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium.
Thanks James Farmer (founder of Edublogs) for giving me this opportunity because it has increased my potential to interact/connect with a larger community and help even more people. And thanks to all the bloggers (you all know who you are) that I work with and assist — I enjoy helping you all .
The Friendships
But most important my blogging has helped me connect with wonderful people throughout the World, and whose friendship I value. I’m sorry I won’t be coming to NECC.
And for each of you, because I know you are missing me this week, I left this video so you can have a good laugh. Make sure you watch it because there are short comedy segments between sections of the song.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks to everyone that does take the time to grant my birthday wish. Internet access will be limited while I’m away but I’ll see you when I get back.
Great news!!! I’ve been asked by Robin Ellis and Darren Draper to talk about blogging with educators participating in Open PD.
Slight problem! Minor really — hardily worth mentioning but it’s at 5.00 am tomorrow morning my time (their local time of 5-6 pm US Eastern Time Zone on Wednesday April 9).
Time for a confession — I’m not good at waking up in the morning. I never hear the alarm go off when it wakes up my hubby. So I’m enlisting hubby’s help to make sure I’m awake on time. He’s not 100 % reliable at this either forgetting or, worse still, waking me way too early to find out what time I want to be woken up. Image by VanitasPhotography.
So I’m thinking perhaps I could also get you to help out in two ways?
Anyone and everyone are welcome. Ustream and Skype (here is the link so you can join the session) to encourage global participation. I always gain so much from attending these Open PD session.
2. Share Your Blogging Experience & Tips For New Bloggers
I like to stress that the most important aspect of blogging, and where the true learning happens, is in the conversations. So I’m hoping you will write a comment on this post or write your post (which links to this post) so I can show them how blogging conversations work.
So can you please tell us about:
Where you blog and how long you have been blogging for?
Why you blog? How does it benefit you or your work?
How blogging has helped your students and how long have you been blogging with students (if applicable)
Why you feel blogging is important
What are the 3 most important tips you would share with a new blogger?
FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks for helping out :). Open PD will be talking about blogging for the next two weeks (April 9 & 16) so there is plenty of time for you to add your thoughts to be part of this conversation.
Ocean of Know uses videoconferencing and Internet-based monitoring/control systems to connect kids from NYC schools to this research facility. Once linked, kids and teachers learn through a series of projects and routine farm maintenance - as if controlling an aquaponics facility via the Internet can be considered routine! You only have to spend a few minutes on this site to see how creative and engaging the lessons are.
My workplace provides training for the maritime industry; encompassing fishing operations, seafood processing, seafarers & engineers on the large ships, marine tourism, marine science and aquaculture.
Putting it simply we employ highly qualified people from a range of maritime industries, with wealth of experience and we have great facilities – plenty of opportunities for educators to connect their students to learn about the maritime industry.
Check out the short video below that I created to give you show you aspects of aquaculture I could share. I’d even be prepared to talk about Goldfish with your students :).
Where I’m At
So as I said I need your help to move it from the idea into making it work :). I’m hoping if I list my thought process you can provide suggestions.
Here’s my thought process so far:
1. Simple Lessons and Provide Information on Aquaculture
I’m thinking we could develop simple lessons, similar the concept they’ve used on Ocean of Know, which educators could use with their students plus provide access to us using Skype, webcams, videos, Ustream etc and obviously site tours for local schools.
Happy to involved international schools as students from throughout the World train at our centre.
Can you tell me whether/how this might fit into your curriculum?
2. Getting Others Involved
Ideally it would be good to get K12 educators involved especially with lessons.
Who should I contact? Science Teachers Association? Curriculum Development at Education Department? Who else?
3. What Type Of Site To Use
I’m thinking of keeping it simple using a wiki because it’s probably better suited and provides an opportunity to showcase various Web 2.0 tools to new educators.
My preference is wikispaces. Your thoughts? Wiki? Wikispaces? Or not a wiki?
4. Forum Facility
Want include the ability for students/educators could post questions –the discussion tab isn’t the best for forums — could embed a forum? Ideas?
5. What haven’t I thought of?
I’m bound to have missed something. But what?
FINAL THOUGHTS
My managers can see merit in my idea — even if they don’t quite understand where I’m going with it. Who can blame them I’m still working it out myself.
I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the time to help me out by leaving a comment with your thoughts and ideas; so that I can start to make it happen
What an amazing week! Last month working with Kim Cofino, Silvia Tolisano and Michele Martin we created the concept of the Comment Challenge which started this month.
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Subscribing for free!
. And like all woman I don’t like to feel fat! Thankfully I’ve got great friends in 
It’s been a great honor to now also blog on 
