Nexus

I’m really enjoying taking part in the 2008 Comment Challenge! I’m meeting familiar and new-to-me bloggers all over the place (including here on my own blog)! And as usual when I throw myself into a challenge, I’m learning so much!

Today’s challenge relates to comment tracking. This is a critical element of commenting. When you make the effort to comment on someone’s post, it’s usually because the writer struck a chord and drew you into the conversation. It follows that you would have an interest in seeing where the conversation goes. A number of blogs have a “Follow this conversation by e-mail” function. That’s the first method I used to track a conversation and I have to admit I might still use it for a conversation in which I’m deeply involved.

About a year ago I started looking for a more efficient way to track the conversations in which I was involved. I was also coming to the realization that some of my best thinking and writing was happening on other people’s blogs, leaving my own looking a bit barren. That’s when I found coComment. It seemed to offer what I was looking for - a way to track my comments and aggregate them on my own blog through a widget. If you are interested in having a detailed look at how coComment works visit Sue Waters‘ blog. She has done a superb job of explaining how to use this tool.

I had stopped using coComment a while back because I was finding it cumbersome and felt it was slowing down my posting. I’m having a fresh look now as part of the Comment Challenge. There are features that I missed before or that have been added recently that I’m finding worthy of a second look.

1. Tags. When you track a comment you can tag it with one or more keywords. Then when you view your comment page you can click on any of your tags to see just those comments. Love this feature!
2. RSS. I don’t think I could function without RSS so I was pleased to see that I can pull in the feed from any of the conversations or groups I’m tracking. I’ve subscribed to the feed for the Comment Challenge group and am reading the comments in Google Reader. So far, I think I like this.
3. Social networking. I had noticed before that coComment suggests “neighbours” and allows you to add friends and follow their comments. Personally I can barely keep up with the blogs I subscribe to; I’m not even going to try to keep track of other people’s comments! I do however like the “Group” feature. We’re using it to pull together the comments of the 100 or so people involved in the Commenting Challenge. I can see how this would be an asset in the classroom and in professional learning!

There are other comment tracking systems as well. Maybe I’ll have time to look at them during this challenge. Better yet, I’ll see what others post as part of the Day 3 Activity!

Technorati tags: Comment Challenge, comment08, Sue Waters, coComment

The neat thing about edubloggers is that they don’t just write about “stuff” after it happens; they get out there, jump in with both feet and try things. We’re all geared up for the K12 Online Conference and its theme of Playing with Boundaries seems to have hit home with many of us, as that’s exactly what we’ve been doing the past few days. There have been several opportunities this week to push the boundaries of professional learning by experimenting with social networking tools such as UStream TV.

Checking my Google Reader Friday morning led me to an invitation from Vicki Davis to virtually attend her sessions that day at the MAINEducation 2007 Technology Conference. She invited us to “pull up the stream [on UStream TV] and then follow along in the Google presentation“. I decided to accept the invitation and take the opportunity to “learn over the shoulders” of the participants in the Blogging for a Better Classroom presentation.

Having had a few experiences watching Will Richardson, David Jakes, Dean Shareski, IJohn Pederson and others play with UStream TV and Operator11 earlier in the week, I thought I knew what to expect - audio and video from the presentation and a running chat with the other viewers/listeners. Vicki’s expert use of UStream blew me away! She confidently and expertly handled the technology and skillfully drew those of us on the outside into the group, as though she’d been presenting this way for years. There are several factors which made Vicki’s presentation so successful.

1. The use of the UStream TV tool was planned by the presenter and not spring upon the presenter. Earlier on Friday I watched David Warlick’s presentation in Webster, Wisconsin courtesy of IJohn Pederson’s broadcast through UStream TV. Although David was made aware that IJohn was broadcasting, he hadn’t planned for the broadcast to be integrated into his presentation. Those of us “on the outside” never joined the group “on the inside”. Vicki on the other hand invited us, acknowledged our presence, welcomed us, encouraged her face to face participants to join us in the backchannel, and planned for ways for us to be drawn into the F2F group.
2. The viewers/listeners, (back channelers), were drawn into the presentation in a meaningful way. For instance, right off the bat, we were invited to drop links to our own blogs in the backchannel chat. Rather than talking about teachers who blog, Vicki brought us along and immediately connected the session participants to our blogs. There were other opportunities for us to add to the presentation, e.g. “Tell us how you are handling comments on your blogs”.
3. Vicki assigned what she called a “Backchannel Bouncer”, (sorry Vicki, I don’t care for the term), to watch the backchannel, welcome the participants, summarize responses to the presenter’s questions, and report back comments or questions that should be addressed. This role which was played expertly by Cheryl Oakes, is essential for managing the communication flow!

Here’s a snapshot of the session.

I went in intending to “learn over the shoulders” of the participants. Instead I found myself actively engaged with the group - all without leaving my desk. How’s that for playing with boundaries?

Technorati tags: education, edubloggers, blogging, UStream TV, backchanneling, Vicki Davis, David Warlick, K12 Online Conference, k12online07

I joined the social network EduBloggerWorld shortly after attending the Edubloggercon in Atlanta this past June. Created by edubloggers Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis, Darren Draper and Steve Hargadon, EduBloggerWorld has as its stated mission, “Facilitating connections and community for educational bloggers worldwide.”

There seems to be a real emphasis in this social network on developing community, not just sharing ideas and resources, but also defining common goals and taking steps toward reaching those goals. One step involves organized virtual meet-ups. I think these will go a long way to promoting a sense of community, bringing a very personal touch to the online experience! I was glad I was able to make the Elluminate session with Julie Lindsay last night. It was great to hear other bloggers share their excitement about the impact of blogging in their professional lives. I tried to attend the session this afternoon facilitated by Vicki Davis, but today was my day for one disaster and a million and one interruptions, so unfortunately I finally just had to give up.

The EduBloggerWorld community has designated today as ‘Window to the EduBlogger World’. We are all invited to share our experiences with blogging and post a photo of our own blogging area, showing others what we are looking at when we blog.

This sounded like fun, so first thing this morning I took a picture of the view from my desk.

I work with the YES I Can! Science project, an outreach project of the Faculty of Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. As this is a good two and a half hour commute from my house, and office space at the university is at a premium, I’ve elected to work from my home office. I’ve been doing this for several years now and have learned that if I am going to have any chance at a life that doesn’t involve working 24/7, I need to have a designated office in my home. Fortunately for me this office has beautiful views of my porch and front garden.

After I posted this picture, I was interrupted by a major database error, (human error), that took most of the day to rectify. Throughout the day, this post was percolating in the back of my mind. When I got back to my blog and had a second look at my photo, I realized that this is the “micro” view from my desk; there’s a bigger picture of where I blog.

I blog globally, on all of the project sites I create and facilitate, where we connect K-12 students from around the world with mentors, experts, and scientists working in the field.

I have learned so much from these blogging experiences:

• a 12 year old can become impassioned about laboratory work, and can emerge as the expert in “tissue-sampling techniques”, interpreting the researchers’ posts for the rest of us;
• a teenager in a residential treatment facility can find dignity and purpose in the anonymity of a blog;
• aboriginal students in northern Canada can find powerful voices through blogging;
• students can take over the purpose and function of their class blog, leaving the teacher in the role of commenter;
• scientists, engineers and astronauts can become engaged with the thoughtful questions and observations of K-12 students.

These lessons, I learned quickly and early in my blogging experiences with students. They excite and motivate me to keep up with hundreds of student bloggers at a time.

It’s only been in the last six months that I’ve recognized the value of blogging for my own professional growth. I’ve discovered that blogging starts with reading. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It’s not though. Until you read widely, you won’t recognize the power and wisdom of the “network.” Through the “magic” of RSS, I have been able to pull together an incredibly effective personal learning network from the edublogspere. I have learned more in a shorter period of time than at any other point in my very long career - from reading, commenting, reflecting and conversing with edubloggers. My learning network has become almost organic; it changes as my own thinking progresses and morphs as conversations start, finish and evolve. My Google reader regularly drops and adds feeds, letting me pull in, aggregate, tag and take part in the conversations that resonate with me at any given moment.

I’ve also come to realize that writing can be a powerful element in my thinking process, helping me to pull my thoughts together or just let them flow organically. I use my blog to start conversations, archive my thoughts and experiences, and make connections between my ideas and those of other edubloggers. I find as I re-read my drafts looking to find just the right wording, that I’m asking myself a lot of questions that move beyond semantics or style:

• “so what do you really mean to say?”
• “why do you think that?”
• “is there another perspective?”
• “what else do you need to know?”
• “what next?”

As much as I believe that you blog first of all for yourself, I also feel the need to be part of a community. I find it difficult to speak in an empty room; after a while my voice trails off. Similarly I think it’s hard to blog as a solitary experience. Interaction, (through commenting), is critical to pushing thinking. EduBloggerWorld is helping to build community, giving edubloggers a “home base”, linking our personal blogs and facilitating the advancement of common agendas. I look forward to seeing where we can go together over the next few months…

Technorati tags: edubloggerworld2007 edubloggerworld edubloggerworldmeetup2007 YES I Can! Science McMaster University