Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Recognizing Quality and Camaraderie / Day 15 Comment Award

May 15, 2008 at 11:10 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Commenter Award, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, Online Learning, comment08, online education |
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, comment award, comment08, Education Blogging, Education Blogs

Remembering to Give Praise

I don’t know why it is so difficult for some people to give praise. I know that praise within my medical education experience was very fleeting. I have found that giving praise isn’t *as lacking* in the education field; at least we remember to praise our students.

Since having children I have discovered how important it is to praise my daughters to encourage their growth and reinforce positive behavior.

Praise…is specific and well-deserved positive reinforcement.

Respect and praise support children’s growing sense of themselves and encourages positive behaviors.

Nancy Golden

The challenge for today was to give out a “Comment Award” to your favorite commenter (or commenters), recognizing them for their contributions to conversation in the blogosphere.

Recognizing Quality and Building Camaraderie

Dr. Scott McLeod, coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University and director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) posted in April 2008:

In the blogosphere we pay a lot of attention to the folks who blog. We rarely, if ever, recognize those folks who comment. But of course the power of blogs would be greatly diminished if folks weren’t willing to add their commentary to others’ posts.

Michele Martin encouraged us in today’s challenge to recognizing someone for their contributions to conversation in the blogosphere. Since we all like some recognition!

Recognizing quality commenting is an excellent way of building camaraderie and blog community involvement.

Criteria for My 31 Day Comment Award

I decided to award my commenter award in two areas:

1. A commenter(s) that challenged me to think.

The Inspiring Thinking award went to Michele Martin of michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog who inspired the Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 blog post and Silvia of http://langwitches.org who inspired the Remembering to Put Out the Welcome Mat on Day 12.

2. A commenter(s) who is creating community with other commenters.

The Creating Community award went to Sue Waters of aquaculturepda.edublogs.org and Christine Martell of christinemartell.com.
Day 15: Give a Comment Award
The task for Day 15 was to give out a “Comment Award” to your favorite commenter (or commenters) recognizing them for their contributions to conversation in the blogosphere. Today was for recognizing the commenters we love the most.

Accomplishments Day 15

1. Creating and Posting a 31 Day Comment Challenge Award Badge in the Video and Photo section of the Wikispaces Blog.

2. Reflecting on why we don’t give out Praise.

3. Reviewing Comments left on this Blog for potential recipients.

4. Deciding 31 Day Comment Challenge Award Recipients.

5. Start Working on a separate Ruminations Award for those commenters who get me to really think.

6. Writing and Posting Day 15 post.

Reflections & Revelations on Day 15

It was interesting thinking about how little we praise each other as adults or as colleagues, yet how important it is to our development and especially to our childrens’ and students’ development.

I also really had a lot of fun designing a Commenter Challenge Badge for the challenge, which in and of itself was more challenging than I’d anticipated.

Image Source: 31 Day Comment Challenge Award Badge © Kirsti A. Dyer

This blog post is part of The Comment Challenge, comment08.