Week 2 Blog Challenge. Comment away…

Many thanks to Sue Waters from the Edublogs management team for creating this post last year. I have made a few changes and added some other blogs to visit in some activities.

An important part of the Student Blogging Challenge is connecting with students and other classes by reading posts and leaving comments.

Comments allow you, and your readers, to engage in discussions, share thoughts and connect with your blog.

Most new bloggers find publishing posts easy and commenting harder!  Your activity this week is to learn more about commenting and improve your commenting skills!

What makes a good comment?

Comments transform your blog from a static space to an interactive community.  Commenting is one way a blogger can create conversations.

Your readers leave a comment that hopefully asks questions (which encourage conversation), you reply back to their comments on your blog, then visit their blog to read their posts and engage with them on their blog.

The better your comment the more chance you have in creating conversations.

Start by watching either of the following two videos on Commenting.

Watch Mrs Yollis’s ‘How to Write a Quality Comment‘.  You can also watch it on Vimeo if YouTube is blocked in your School District.

Watch Nicolas Weiss’s Leaving High Quality Blog comments video  if you are a high school student.

Now visit Huzzah’s Commenting Guideline to learn some more commenting tips.

Important tips:

  • Refer to Adding a comment support documentation if you are unsure how to add a comment.
  • Comments may be moderated on your blog.   Remember to check your Comments folder, and comment spam folder,  to approve any pending comments.
  • Include the url (address) in your comment when you leave a comment on another blogger’s post so the blogger can visit your blog and comment.

Below is an example of a comment from Huzzah’s blog that shows how to include your blog URL in your comment.

Comment example

Activity 1: Leave a comment on this post. 

Each week the best posts published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in our Flipboard magazine.

To check your posts we need you to leave a comment with a link to your post on this blog whenever you finish a weekly activity.

So your first activity is to practice leaving a comment below with a link to your post for an activity you’ve completed this week or last week. If you have already commented last week, you don’t have to do this unless you have a new post you want Miss W to read. PS I have 95 comments to read at the moment that were posted overnight when I was asleep in Australia.

Here is an example from Ayla last week:

Hi Ms. W,
I have just finished this week’s blogging challenge by uploading my avatar and making my about me page! Here is the link: http://aylaz13.edublogs.org/about-me/
So far blogging I have enjoyed creating my blog and I hope to get lots of comments
Thanks
~Ayla
http://aylaz13.edublogs.org
http://huzzah.edublogs.org

Activity 2:  Practicing commenting on a class blog

Mrs Smith has published an excellent activity that guides you through commenting, learning to read student posts and practicing comments.

Visit Mrs Smith’s I’m New Here post to work through the tasks in her post and then leave a comment on her post. Remember to include the URL of your blog.

Activity 3: Write a post, create a video or create a poster about commenting.

Might be tips to get more visitors,  guidelines for acceptable comments on your blog, examples of good and bad comments – think outside the square. Remember you don’t have to approve all comments. It is your blog; send some to the trash and if it is a company trying to get you to visit their blog to buy something, then label it as spam.

Here are some links to commenting guidelines written by students and classes. Class in New Zealand, grade 11/12 class in USA, Huzzah class blog in Canada, Abbey has a blogging guideline page, Mrs Allen created a poster about commenting,  WarriorKat uses lots of visuals in her guidelines,  Sophie had a great post, the Blogging Frogs have some great tips, Emmecreated a powtoon on commenting , Darcey write about commenting,  Kyndal wrote about how to comment, Rachel wrote her own guidelines

Activity 4: Visit other student or class blogs

Visit 4 other blogs on the lists above the header area. Leave a quality comment on one post on each blog. Might be the About Me page or another post you found interesting.  Write a post on your blog mentioning who you visited, which post you left a comment on and why, then include the comment you left. Hint: make sure you copy the comment before you hit the submit button.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

There will be two posts this week so look out for the next one on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have had some mentors mention they cannot leave comments on some blogs.

If using blogspot, make sure you have Name/URL as an option when commenting.

If using Edublogs, make sure your blog is open to the world and you don’t need to login to leave a comment. To check this, go to your computer, find your blog, DONT login but click on the title of a post – does a message come up about needing to login? This means a normal visitor won’t be able to leave a comment.

6 thoughts on “Week 2 Blog Challenge. Comment away…

  1. You should make a good comment by Star, Wish, Wonder. Its the best of the best. The star is what you think was the best thing or what you liked the most about the story. The Wish is when someone wishes that you should’ve done that. Its like advice. Finally the Wonder. That’s when your a little confused about a section in your story. So then you can explain to them what they were confused about.

  2. A good comment there is a good tip for this there is something called “Star, Wish, Wonder” In my classroom that what we use here I’ll tell you about it. Star tell the person a good thing they did with there story/author everyone likes a compliment on there post. Wish tell them what you wish they did better no necessarily a bad thing but what you wish they did or what you could have done. And Last but not least wonder ask a question of what they are going to good or if they are going to do that when they get older or something like that. That is my good comment tips to use if you need to make a super, awesome, mega comment.

  3. You should make a good comment by Star, Wish, Wonder. The star is what you think was the best thing or what you liked the most about the story. The Wish is what you wish the person would have added. The wonder is a question about a part in the post . Here is the link to my blog http://blog.elanco.org/mastbnb/

  4. The best way to comment is to use the Star, Wish, Wonder method. It is quite simple. The star is something you liked about the post. The wish is what you think the writer could’ve done better. The wonder is a question you have about the post. I use this method in every comment I do. Please try this method out if you haven’t already because it truly helps to make a good, quality comment.

    Here s the link to my blog: http://blog.elanco.org/keckler/

  5. 1 of the best ways you can make a comment is with S.W.W. star wish wonder is a great method, I use it every time I comment on anyone blog. All it is is wright a sentience or two about what you think they did best, The star. Next the wish, it enplanes what you think they did not do so well with and what you think they could improve on. And last, but not least, the wonder. The wonder is where you can ask about the parts of the blog that you didn’t get or anything like that.

    I hope you can enjoy my blog, http://blog.elanco.org/hahna989/

  6. That was really interesting! I like how you put so much information on your blog and I think that this was a very interesting blog… Maybe you could come and check out my blog!Thanks! 🙂

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