Things are buzzin’ at the Comment Challenge!
May 5th, 2008 by DianeThe volume of the edublogsphere has been cranked up this past week as over 100 bloggers have taken up the challenge to improve their commenting by participating in the 2008 31 Day Comment Challenge. Commenters have been buzzing, flitting from blog to blog, sampling bits of wisdom here and digging into conversations there.
Kate Foy and Kevin Hodgson created great videos to give us a peek into the their commenting journeys. In the spirit of fun, here’s a quick Animoto flick to give you a sense of where I’ve “been” lately.
Technorati tags: comment08, , Comment Challenge, Kate Foy, Kevin Hodgson, Animoto
May 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Hey Diane
great stuff! I love Animoto too. It’s such a fun ‘moving postcard’. Do you have an open access pass with them? If you do you could send it on up to the Flickr 31 Day Comment Group page.
Even if you don’t, the home Wiki page should pick it up since you’ve tagged it.
Keep ‘em coming!
May 5th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Oh man
Great video.
The music …. perfect.
I agree with Kate — can you embed it into the Comment Wiki? There is now a link for Videos and Pictures. (http://commentchallenge.wikispaces.com/Our+Videos+and+Photos)
Thanks for giving me a smile this afternoon.
Kevin
May 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Very cool Diane. I love these video you are all creating. If you do add to the Flickr group can you tag it comment08? Also any chance of you embedding it on our video and photo page on the wiki?.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hi Kate, Kevin and Sue! Thanks for the kind words about the Animoto flic. It’s such a great tool - easy and quick, yet delivers a punch! Kevin, I know you liked the music; did you appreciate the Canuck picking the Maple Leaf Rag (even though it didn’t have anything to do with a hockey team)?
Now I need your help. I’ve spent the last few minutes over at the Comment Challenge video page and I can’t seem to embed the code. I chose the embed code from Animoto, and the Insert code/Javascript on the wiki. All I seem to get is the text version of the code snippet. Can any of you help?
May 5th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Ah ha!!! Kate, Kevin and Sue, I figured it out - the movie is embedded on the Comment Challenge wiki
May 6th, 2008 at 5:49 am
I see it!
Great job figuring it out.
I hope other folks get inspired by your video and do their own.
I like the mix of styles, too.
Kevin
May 6th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Morning All
I’m hoping we get some more up there too. Bit like a mini film festival if we do!
May 10th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Diane,
Well here is a little tidbit I have gleaned from you. I came over here from your comment on my blog. I did my usual thing, looked for information about you and scanned your posts.
I loved the Voki intro and thought wow that is really fun. Started wondering where it would be appropriate, if anywhere, in my blogs. Then I saw your post to self, and thought I wonder if there is a service that would send that to me every month or so. I got a sense there was a lot of great information about engagement through technology.
So I found lots of fun engaging things in my overview….yet it is only because of the comment challenge that I am taking time and finding a place to tell you. Normally I wouldn’t write a comment that wasn’t directly relevant to exactly what a post was about. And I never think about commenting on older posts. I guess I assume the blogger has moved on. Yet, I know how fun it is to get comments anytime.
Hmm, thinking again. I guess I don’t have a place or offer any encouragement to have these more general conversations. I wonder how bloggers could do that?
May 10th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Christine, thanks for taking the time to visit!
You’ve raised a good point! I think there probably is a need for a general comments area on a blog. The first thing I look for when I click through to a new blog is the “About” page to get a feel for the blogger’s perspective. I’ve been noticing comments on quite a number of those pages. I’d thought that a bit strange but it makes sense if you consider readers just might want to comment unrelated to a post. I suppose it would b easy enough to add a page just for such comments. Something to think about.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:49 am
An open area for comments …. I wonder if this could be like a “forum” area.
Would it get unwieldy?
Moderated?
I know there are forums (or discussion boards) now as part of Edublogs, but I have not yet tried it out. It might be worth pursuing. But it makes me wonder then, about the value of the comments being directed connected to a particular post. I think the focus, even if it veers slightly from time to time, is valuable, as long as I can follow the threads.
Kevin
May 11th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I, for one am not ready to add a forum area - to this blog anyway. I don’t think I have the time or energy to manage it. It would of course have to be threaded and yes, moderated. (I have seven multi-user blogs for student projects; you have no idea how much spam tries to sneak through on a daily basis. I’m more inclined to put up additional walls, rather than taking any down). I spent over a decade as a moderator for the now-defunct Education Network of Ontario and found that threading conversation is not intuitive for many people. For now I’ll stick with communication through post commenting.
Ah ha! (Don’t you just love it when that happens?). I was just about to type: “People can leave more general comments or questions on my contact page.” Guess what? I don’t have a contact page. I think I need to remedy that.
This bodes well for the rest of the day. I’ve learned something already and haven’t even finished my first pot of tea