Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Remembering to Put Out the Welcome Mat on Day 12

May 12, 2008 at 11:02 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, comment08 | 4 Comments
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, co.mments, comment08, Education Blogging, Education Blogs, Moderating Comments, Welcome

Silvia’s frustration with trying to post a message on my blog early in the challenge was voiced in her blog Allow Others to Comment… Make it as Easy as You Can.

I suddenly realized that I needed to put out a Welcome Mat for a blog and hadn’t done one for this blog.

This is what I posted in response.

Thanks for pointing out the problems in trying to post comments on the Rumination’s Blog. I hadn’t really thought about it when I was setting up the on / off switches in the blog panel.
I did a bit of investigation and changed the switch, so hopefully now people can post more easily. Add another one to the learning process.

Apologies for your frustrations.

I am discovering many differences between creating and hosting a blog that are very different from what I have been doing for the past 10 years with creating and hosting an informative website. Another one of those differences is in moderating comments.

Moderating Comments

Sue Water’s post on Are Your Comment Settings Making It Harder For Readers To Comment? got me thinking. I really started ruminating when she voiced the opinion on moderating comments that “my personal belief is it’s better not to moderate comments” and started to figure out why I moderate comments.

Reflections on Moderating Comments

I am beginning to realize that there may be different blogging rules for different sites. I’ve had positive experiences with my edublogs account (only a few months old). I can’t say the same with my blogger blog accounts or with my personal website.

As I’d posted already on Day 9 of the challenge several of the comments that I’ve received the NICU Parent Support Blog (a blogger account) fell prey to some spam bloggers who posted pornographic links (not the best thing for NICU Parents to see). At the time I didn’t have comment moderations on, so I had to go in delete the post and republish it, this time with comment moderation on.

With my personal website, Journey of Hearts, over the years I have received long email messages with stories of grief and loss, when we had the guest book and forum, some of these messages ended up there. I took down the guest book several years ago, when we changed servers and never got around to reestablishing it.

My other main experience with messages is within Squidoo. There are many lenses where people leave comments more along the lines of Blog Junk and the comments have nothing to do with the topic, blog spam.

I realized for me, having to moderate comments is my reminder to check for and read comments; moderating is a way of ensuring that I will remember to read comments.

Continue reading Remembering to Put Out the Welcome Mat on Day 12…

Defining Blogging in Education - Day 3 of the Challenge

May 3, 2008 at 1:51 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Edublog, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, online education | 9 Comments
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, co.mments, comment08, Education Blogging, Education Blogs

With the Blog Challenge now underway, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be involved now in the 31 Day Comment Challenge.

I also been ruminating on the main reason that launched the Ruminations Blog,”…to share my thoughts, observations, reflections and resources about online education, online teaching, distance education, e-learning and web education from the perspective of a Physician, Professor, Health Educator and Online Student.”

I discovered as part of the 31 Day Comment Challenge, Silvia Tolisano’s insights on Blogging in Education. She does an excellent job in defining the differences between traditional blogging and educational blogging.

According to Silvia:

Blogging in and for the educational field is:

• not only about posting
• not only about leaving and receiving comments
• not about promoting your blog on Twitter or other sites
• not about getting a high ranking on Technorati

It should be:

• all about personal learning
• sharing thoughts, ideas, resources
• reading
• writing
• the process
• and encouraging others in their learning journey (we are educators after all)

My Personal Goals for the 31 Day Comment Challenge

After reading Silvia’s definition of educational blogging I decided to add a few more ‘goals’ to my goal list for the 31 Day Challenge:

4. Learn more about blogging and educational uses of blogging.
5. Record and reflect what I am learning about the process.

6. Be contented with my learning and blogging experience.
7. Encourage others by visiting a new blog at least every other day.

Two days into the challenge and I have already learning *a lot* about blogging and the educational uses of blogging. Continue reading Defining Blogging in Education - Day 3 of the Challenge…