This summer is especially busy with our trip to Munich, a few weeks in Connecticut with my family, a few weeks in Oregon with my husband’s family, then back to CT for another week so Alex can take a Praxis exam for his English teacher’s certification, before we head back to Bangkok at the end of July. I guess I lost my mind for a few minutes there when I was booking all those flights. The price you pay for living internationally - the cost, time and effort to visit all relatives must be borne by those residing outside of the country.

Sadly, with all this traveling to and fro across our rather large country, I am not going to be attending NECC this year (actually, I’ve never been!). But somehow, thanks to the wonderful Carolyn Foote, I will be presenting (remotely, of course) at a panel session with the brilliant minds of Carolyn, Joyce Valenza, Cathy Nelson, Diane Cordell, Judy O’Connell, and Anita Beaman.

In all honesty, I’m not even sure I’m qualified to be on a panel with these amazing ladies, but I’m so happy to be able to offer a brief (seven minutes to be exact) video introduction to the process of developing our 21st Century Literacy program at ISB. Just in case you’re interested, and you’re not going to be at NECC, check it out here:

Of course all the information shared in the video is the result of the work of our fantastic ISB21 team: Justin Medved, Dennis Harter, Rob Rubis, Ida Kesley and myself. It’s hard to believe that we’ll have two new members to our awesome team come August: Jeff Utecht and Chad Bates. Does it get any better than that?

And, that just might be all the school-related thinking I’m going to do this summer…

Here’s what we came up with (and I would love to hear feedback):

The grade 5 students will create a Students Teaching Students podcast focused on helping other students learn and use quality strategies for reading. This is an educational podcast teaching other students how to become good readers using RW strategies that they learn over the course of the year.

This strand will continue throughout the whole school year with different sections of grade 5 (we have 7 grade 5 classes) leading different units of RW. All podcasts can be uploaded onto a common 5th grade reading-focused blog and added to iTunes for parents and other teachers to subscribe. The podcasts can also be shared with the 4th and 3rd grades so we have a built-in authentic audience (and we help vertical articulation too!). The project will be started with our first RW unit and continue throughout the year.

To allow for new teachers (we will have 4 new grade 5 teachers next year) to get comfortable with the process, we can differentiate: some classes can start with just listening to the podcasts, then when ready, students come in as “guest stars/speakers” on the “show,” eventually we can have many facilitators from all classes.

The project can be broken into 3 stages:

Stage 1: Focus on strategies.

Students Teaching Students podcast begins with 1 or 2 of our grade 5 classes to develop strong student facilitators and provide a model for good student-produced podcasts at ISB. The first stage is to focus on what strategies they are learning in RW and teach other students how the strategies help them become good readers. This can be a regular, short, podcast focusing on the critical aspects of RW they learn each week - the podcast station can be set up as a “center” in the classroom.

Stage 2: Focus on the content being learned in RW.

Have “guest stars/speakers” from other classrooms on the “show” to talk about the content they are reading and how they use different strategies to learn through reading. Student facilitators from the first two participating classes will lead these discussions on a weekly basis.

For this to work well, we will need to develop common prompts, thinking strategies and questions so that students will have a “handbook” for excellent podcasts. Eventually this could be entirely managed by students.

Stage 3: Focus on building excitement about reading.

Add book talks, book reviews, etc, using these same tools (or perhaps VoiceThread and other tools) to deepen learning about content, to make connections to other student readers, and to share more about what we’re reading. Start regularly connecting with students in other schools around the world to discuss and improve reading skills and strategies.

What do you think? How can we make this idea even better? Has this already been done (which would give me a great model to start from)? All feedback appreciated!

As I’m sure many of you would agree, in my experience meeting an online acquaintance in person is exciting, but not surprising.

When I opened the door to see Chrissy, it was like an old friend coming to visit - not some stranger I was meeting for the first time. As Chrissy said, it was my first time meeting her “body,” but we were already good friends from our online conversations. Our f2f conversations simply continued from the last time we spoke - via Skype. In fact, what truly amazes me, is that often my “online friends” know more about what’s going on in my life than my “physical” friends and family.

Being constantly connected means that when Chrissy and I met for the first time I actually knew more about what was “going on” with her than I did when my oldest friend from high school, Martine, showed up for her visit the following weekend. Not that I don’t keep in touch with Martine - we e-mail regularly, occasionally have a phone or Skype call, and we always spend time together when we’re in the same country (not so easy when she lives in England and I’m in Thailand) - but it’s not the same regular, consistent communication I have with my network (almost all of whom definitely do not live in Thailand).

I have to admit, I’ve almost started getting a little irritated with my friends and family that aren’t online with any regularity. They miss the photos I share (unless I send them a direct e-mail or remind them by phone), they don’t get my in-depth vacation recaps from my personal blog until I come home for the summer and do my annual slideshow, and they certainly don’t get the inside scoop on my daily life here in Bangkok because by the time I get home for summer holidays I have to rush through all the stories in whatever limited time I have (and usually I have to tell them over and over again as I go from city to city visiting - by the end of the summer most of my interesting stories have really lost their luster).

So I guess what really surprises me is how so many other people react when I tell them that I’m meeting an old friend for the first time. The confused, somewhat awkward look on their face - clearly not sure exactly what to say. How can you be old friends if you’ve never met? I know they’re thinking, but they’re always too polite to say anything.

When I really take a minute to think about it, though, those virtual friends are actually far more in tune with my life than so many of my “old” friends and family. They all know when I’ve been home sick, or when I’m traveling, or what’s new and exciting in Bangkok. And when they show up at my door, or wave from across the conference hall, or show me around their school, it’s like we’ve been friends and colleagues for ages.

A couple of thoughts about this paradox of virtual friendship spring to mind:

First, because of this and other online-connection experiences I’ve had over the last two years or so, I think I’m beginning to understand the sorts of networks that students and teenagers are creating when they SMS each other every five minutes, or use the library computers to go on Facebook - behaviors which often frustrate and irritate teachers and parents. They’re not necessarily just goofing off - they’re creating, maintaining and enlarging their own personal networks of people who genuinely wish them well and provide them with emotional support.

Second, the old argument against technology being “impersonal” or alienating, that it creates drones who stare in loneliness at separate screens instead of engaging in healthy human interaction, is looking even less likely than it ever did. Whenever humans invent a seemingly “impersonal” new form of technology - whether it be the written word, the telephone, or the computer - we always seem to quickly find ways to use that “impersonal” technology to bring us all closer together. And that’s a very encouraging thought.

What do you think? How do your “virtual friendships” compare to the “real-life” version?

I’m taking Sue’s advice and posting my consolidated reflections from the first ten days here:

Day 1: Do a Commenting Self-Audit

My Committing to Conversations post fits nicely under this task, though I did like Michele’s question/idea about commenting on at least one new blog each week. When I comment, I tend to do so almost exclusively on the blogs in my reader, which means I’m more likely to comment on the same blogs each week, but I love the idea of making a concentrated effort to comment on one new blog each week. This will help me open up to more diverse conversations and certainly give me incentive to comment more frequently. I will definitely be adding that tidbit to my commenting habits in the future.

Generally speaking, when I do take the time to comment, I think I do a pretty good job, according to Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments. Honestly, I think it’s the pressure to make sure my comments are worthwhile that leads to my lack of commenting in the first place. Maybe I need to be more cavalier about the whole thing to begin with!

Day 2: Comment on a Blog You’ve Never Commented on Before

I’ve been enjoying leaving comments on new blogs for the duration of the challenge. I’ve been going up and down the list of participants and leaving comments on as many blogs as I can and it’s been amazing to see the learning that’s already taking place and to find new bloggers to add to my RSS reader. I am also thrilled to see all the video tours of this learning journey that other’s have taken the time to share - what a great way to document this adventure!

Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service

I like these easy ones! I’m signed up on coComment and co.mments.

Day 4: Ask a Question in a Blog Comment

I have to admit, I don’t have a problem asking a question in a blog comment, my problem is remembering to go back and see if there’s an answer. My favorite bloggers usually write an e-mail back with the answer from their perspective, but the real point of this challenge is to start open conversations with all commenters on a single post. Which means I need to make better use of my coComment account.

Day 5: Comment on a Blog Post You Don’t Agree With

Generally speaking, I would say I’m a gentle disagreer. Even though my comment may challenge the ideas in the post, I usually try to be as delicate as possible, often asking questions rather than stating an out-and-out “I disagree.” Maybe the purpose of this activity was to be a little more forthright, but I still used my slightly less aggressive way and ended up starting some good dialog. I think the more angry or opinionated you are, the more chance you have of closing off the conversation entirely - and that seems to be the exact opposite of what we’re trying to encourage here.

I must admit that I tend to read the blogs of like-minded people, which means I am much more likely to agree with a post than disagree. Usually if I find myself disagreeing, I’ll pose some questions as comments and see what develops. Of course, I’m just as likely to forget I posted those questions in the end anyway, so unless the blogger e-mails me back, the whole “conversation” bit is a lost cause with me. Clearly, I need to work on my comment tracking habits. Just because I use the coComment extension doesn’t mean I have a habit of going back to those comments I tracked.

Day 6: Engage another Commenter in Discussion

Thanks to Twitter for the @name evolution of replying to comments. I love being able to look down a long list of comments and trace the conversations back and forth. It’s especially interesting to see how readers can develop their own conversation on a blog post - even without the author’s facilitation, thanks to the clear @name response practice. For me, this means I need to be better at following up on comments to see if there are responses to something I said. Hmm… can you see a trend here?

Day 7: Reflect on What You’ve Learned so Far

So, I’m about three days late on this one… better late than never, right? Either way, I think it’s pretty obvious that I need to actually utilize my coComment account for it’s intended purpose - tracking conversations. Clearly I’m all to likely to forget I’ve started a conversation, which pretty much invalidates the whole point of commenting in the first place.

I’ve started a new folder in my Google Reader for items I’m “tracking.” In there I have my coComment and co.mment RSS. Now I just need to develop a routine of checking every morning and responding to any responses that might have been posted. It’s all about routine for me.

Day 8: Comment on a blog outside of your niche

There are a few tech related blogs that I read on a regular basis, and although I very rarely comment, I am often amazed at the sometimes rude or angry tone that commenters take. I think there’s definitely a more welcoming, thoughtful, and supportive environment prevailing among edubloggers. Of course, that’s not to say that all edubloggers are supportive, there are certainly a few I can think of off the top of my head that seem to enjoy enraging the authors of the posts they read, but for the most part, we seem to be very careful to model good commenting practice, even in our personal blogging experience. It definitely makes me more likely to comment on educational blogs than some of the others I read.

Day 9: Should We Be Commenting on Blogs?

I think this is a personal decision. Blogging helps me think, work through ideas, formalize my thoughts, and connect my learning. For me, commenting enhances all of those things, so there is no blogging without commenting for me. When I take the time to comment on other people’s blogs I deepen my learning, question my thinking, and open my mind to new ideas. When other people take the time to comment on my blog I learn something new, have a chance to refine my ideas and connect with other learners. Taking any of those pieces away in favor of only hearing the author’s voice in isolation just seems like a virtual soapbox to me.

There are lots of other places online to start conversations from Twitter to Ning, but there is something special about blogging. It feels more personal, like the author’s “home” on the web - this is the place where we can go to learn more about the many thoughts of the author - not just one specific thread on a forum. I enjoy “getting to know” a new blogger through their previous posts and responses to comments.

Day 10: Do a Comment Audit on Your Own Blog

After reading Michele’s post entitled: 6 Reasons People Aren’t Commenting on Your Blog, I think I’m doing reasonably OK in welcoming comments on this blog. I think I have a tendency to write more posts with “finished” thoughts than “unfinished,” which most likely lessens the number of comments I could get, but I think that’s more an indicator of my personality than a conscious decision. I usually take a long time to process information and am hesitant to write anything down until I’m done, which in essence can appear to be more “finished” than I might actually be. It would be nice to write more open-ended/”unfinished” posts to encourage more dialog here, and that would be a real challenge for me!

What do you think? Am I a “welcoming” blogger? Or do I sound like I’m not interested in your ideas? I certainly hope my posts don’t sound like press releases! I’d love to hear your feedback about what I can do to make my blog a more welcoming place!

Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen,

So, at least for the next few days, please look for the Comment Challenge activities on the wiki or on Michele’s blog (and what an awesome list of activities it is!). Thank you so much Michele, for organizing these tasks!

Also, a few participation howtos:

• If you’re still wondering how to track comments, Sue has a great post to get you started.
• In order to add your posts to the Comment Challenge conversations, check out Silvia’s post on adding Technorati tags.
• For those new to commenting, Silvia also has a great post on the logistics of adding (and tracking) a comment.
• If you’re interested in participating in the Comment Challenge with your class, check out the Student Groups page - there are tons of partners already ready and waiting for you!
• If you’re like me, and you know you may not be able to post a reflection for each day of the challenge (for whatever reason), Sue proposes reflecting on a weekly basis and synthesizing your learning in one post for the whole week (which sounds very good to me right now).

Alright, now it’s time for some commenting before my enforced online hiatus begins! Pictures of the new place as soon as we’re back online!

Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen,

Day 1: Do a Commenting Self-Audit

One of the goals of the 31 Day Comment Challenge is for us to improve our commenting skills and draw more people into blog conversations. So to kick off the 31 days of activities we’re going to start with a commenting self-audit. You can use this to get a better picture of your blog commenting skills and strategies.

For this activity, do the following:

1. Answer the following questions:

• How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
• Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
• Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?

2. Now review Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments and ask yourself how well you’re doing in each of the different areas. Are there any specific areas where you think you need to do some work? What do you want to do to address these issues?

If you’d like, it would be great if you blogged about your comment audit to share what you’ve learned about yourself and your commenting behaviors. Be sure to tag your post with “comment08.”

Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen,

A few exciting bits of news before we get on to the prizes and awards:

• The Comment Challenge is great for your classroom too! We have several classrooms signed up to participate with their students and there are already tons of ideas for classroom activities posted. Please feel free to add more!
• We have added a common tag (comment08) for the Comment Challenge so that all posts will be collected (via RSS) and shared on the Comment08 page of the wiki. Please use this tag when posting about the challenge so we can be sure to read and comment on your post!
• The RSS feed for the coComment group “Comment Challenge” is already working and posted on the Conversations page of the wiki! Please follow the steps to participate so that your comments show up on the RSS feed as well.
• We have lots of activities already listed for participants, please feel free to add more!

And now on to the prizes & awards:

First of all, it is important to note that these prizes are not intended to be a monetary incentive to participate in this challenge. We would hope that the prize for participation is becoming a better blog citizen.

During the 31 Days to a Better Blog (which this Challenge was modeled after) the prizes actually ended up going to students/schools (in that case, they went to the Mini-Legends). We are hoping that this group of participants will make the same decision to share the prizes with those that will value them most.

We are so pleased to announce the wonderful generosity of coComment and Edublogs who will provide the prizes:

• From coComment: US$100 to the winner in each of the four categories (fourth category to be decided - we need your input!)
• From Edublogs: US$50 in credits to the winner in each of the four categories

We hope that these prizes can provide teachers, classrooms, students and/or non-profits with the support they need to implement a quality blogging program.

In addition to these fabulous prizes, the wonderful Scott McLeod has also generously shared his fantastic Comment Award blog badge for all of the winners of this competition.

Please feel free to add your ideas and suggestions to the wiki, or let Sue, Silvia, Michele or me know! We kick start the Comment Challenge tomorrow (May 1st 2008)!

Tags: comment08, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin, Scott McLeod, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen, cocomment, edublogs

And everyone was so generous to sign up without even knowing how to participate!

And did you notice our fabulous logo courtesy of Silvia Tolisano?

What a great network of blog citizens we have already!

So, on to the crucial question: How can you participate in the Comment Challenge?

Step 1: Sign up on the wiki (this is a public wiki, so you don’t actually need to be a member to add your name - but you are more than welcome to join!)

Step 2: Sign up for an account on coComment (free, of course)

Step 3: Add the coComment extension to make it easy to track your conversations (if you have any trouble with this extension try clearing your cache, it worked like a charm for me)

Step 4: RSS your conversations in coComment so you can keep track of your comments easily (see screenshot below)

Step 5: Join the Comment Challenge group in coComment

Step 6: Share your conversations with the group (Sue is working on a detailed howto for that step right now)

Done!

The coolest thing about this coComment group is that it will track all of the comments for all of the people that are members - so we can actually follow all of the conversations that get started because of this challenge. And, we can discover all the excellent new blogs that are getting other participants thinking. We will host the RSS feed for the Comment Challenge group on the wiki so everyone can keep track.

We’re also looking for quick activities to promote excitement about commenting and help us all become better blog citizens - thanks to Michele for that brilliant idea! If you have any activity ideas, please share them here, or on the Activities page of the wiki.

Two more days to go!

Tags: comment08, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen, cocomment, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, The Comment Challenge, Michele Martin,

Here’s what we’re thinking so far (and we’d love your feedback):

We would like to have a month of focused commenting for those of us that are interested in becoming better blog citizens (thanks to Martin Weller for the phrasing) by actively participating in conversations and sharing your learning, especially with those new to blogging.

We would like to challenge participants to be better blog citizens tracking who is the commenter with:

• The most comments on a wide range of blogs (not just the “top” edubloggers)
• The most high quality comments that thoughtfully reflect on the topic
• The comments that provoke and promote the most learning

Sue has even managed to secure monetary prizes from coComment and other sponsors (more details on the prizes soon).

So, what do you think? Would you like to participate? What can we do to make this a better/more interesting challenge? Are there any other (or different) categories we should include?

Image from premasager

Tags: comment08, commenting, comment, challenge, blog citizen, cocomment, Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, Martin Weller,

My problem is that it takes me so long to decide exactly what I want to say that I’m almost always rushing off to do something else by the time I’m ready to actually write (this is the same problem, by the way, that causes me to take 3 hours to write a post). I really wish I was quicker on the fingers, so to speak, but I’m not. I do a little too much thinking sometimes. What that really means is not that I shouldn’t comment, but that I should just write what first comes to mind and comment even more, later, if after thinking about I have something else to say.

The other part of the problem is that I’m a perfectionist and I actively avoid doing things that I may not do well at (unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that I do everything well, it just means that I don’t usually see it coming when I fail). Plus, I’m a bit of a control-freak, so if it’s something I can’t go back and edit, I take even longer to decide exactly how I want to phrase my comments.

And, of course, the final issue I have with commenting is that I already spend way too much time online. I’ve noticed that, this year in particular, I spend more time online, but still never seem to get around to what I really want to do (mostly because I’m busy processing the overwhelming amount of info I find interesting and relevant). It’s frustrating, and it’s definitely making it hard to achieve any sort of balance that we’re all striving for. So, I’ve kind of let the commenting side of thing slide, in favor of consuming as much as possible in the time I have (this is also part of my tendency to hoard - usually related to food, but now, thanks to the convenience of tagging and filing, seems to apply to online information as well).

Well, now that I’ve cleared the air about my serious type-A personality issues, the bottom line is that I need (and want) to make more of a conscious effort to be a part of the conversation (even on my own blog, where it can take me ages to respond to comments as well. Ug.) A recent twittversation (is that a word?) with Sue Waters about the importance of commenting has refocused my efforts back on commenting. Plus, being the information hoarder that I am, I appreciate all of the easy ways to track online conversations that Sue outlines here.

The thing is, when I take the time to actually leave a comment, the content of the post sticks in my mind and pushes my thinking much more so than when I just read. I find that when I leave a comment, I’m more likely to see the connections between the various posts I read, and more likely to follow the links provided in the initial post, as well as read the blogs of the other commenters on the same post. (Ironically, this is one of the reasons I haven’t been doing so much commenting - since I always have too much to read, the last thing I want to do is get so interested in a topic that I read more than I expected, right?). But in the end, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Not just to consume, but to contribute as well. And not just to contribute your own experiences (which takes me long enough as it is), but to develop and contribute your own unique perspective on the connections between all that you read, watch, and hear.

So, I’ve worked my way right back around to the problem of balance again. Clearly, I need to take a lesson from our ISB elementary school goals for next year - it’s more important to focus and deepen learning than it is to just get all the information you can. Now, if only I could decide what to throw out and what to keep in… It’s all so interesting!

Calcutta Coffee House image from lecercle
Stuck image from TeeRish
Camera image from Thomas Hawk

Tags: commenting, comments, comment, conversation, blogging, focus, balance, connections, Sue Waters,