Monthly Archives: September 2009

Tips For Writing Commenting Guides & Guidelines

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Much of the learning from blogging happens as a result of commenting and interaction between commenters.

But how many of your readers know how to even leave a comment?  Or what are your comment approval guidelines?  Or how you interact with their comments?

In case you forgot to tell them here are some ways to help your readers.

#1 A Newbie Guide

Providing a guide that includes how to leave comments is always helpful–  not everyone knows how to write comments on posts.  The key is to think what does some one new to reading your blog really need to know.

Here are some examples of Newbie Guides:

  1. This is my Info For First Time Visitors! – explains how to subscribe using RSS or email and how to leave comments
  2. Michele Martin’s A Newbie Guide to The Bamboo Project – highlights purpose of her blog, what is a blog, how to leave comments, how to participate and important pages on her blog
  3. Tony Karrer’s First Time Visitor Guide – purpose of  blog, how to interact and an index of his posts

#2 Commenting Guidelines

Unfortunately not everyone knows what is/isn’t appropriate to write in comments on posts — this is where commenting guidelines can help.

Use your class blog as an opportunity to educate students, parents and other readers on appropriate commenting practice such as:

  1. Types of identifying information that is appropriate in a comment e.g. What are your rules about use of last names, IM and personal information?
  2. What sort of comments will you approve?
  3. What are you looking for in comments?

It’s also worth reminding readers that blogs are works in progress — they need to remember this when writing comments.  Check out how Jan Smith’s does this in the left hand side bar of Huzzah Blog.

Why not get your students to help write the commenting guidelines for your class blog? You might like to also include examples of good and bad comments.

Check out:

  1. Lisa Hill’s Mossgiel Park PS Blog Commenting Policy
  2. Abbey’s Blog Guidelines for ideas on how a student can add a comment guideline to their blog

Using Pages and Post For Your Information

Approaches taken by bloggers varies.  Some prefer to regularly inform readers on how to comment and/or their comment policy using posts while others use pages.

Larry Ferlazzo uses posts really well to inform readers about commenting.  Here are:

  1. His comment policy posts
  2. His leaving comments on this blog posts

Bloggers who use pages will either:

Final Thoughts

Remember I’m looking for examples and ideas to share with others.

Please a comment with links to any ‘About pages’, ‘Commenting Guidelines’ or ‘Newbie Guides’ you create so I can check them out!

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Be A Helper To Gain Valuable Experience!

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Are you looking for a learning opportunity for yourself and/or your students?

Become a Student blogging challenge helper!

The Student Blogging Challenge needs teams of helpers who are willing to comment on class and student blogs for the duration of the Challenge (finishes end of November).

We would like to do is allocate 5 class blogs and 10 student blogs to each willing helper.

The more helpers the better!

Currently we already have 253 individual student blogs and 65 class blogs participating from twelve countries (USA, Austalia, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Hong Kong, Canada, Scotland, Thailand, Venezuela).  You can check out the Challenge participant list here!

Benefits for you!

This is an ideal chance for teachers and preservice teachers (student teachers) to:

  1. Increase their understanding of how blogs can be used with students
  2. Observe the impact blogging can have on student learning
  3. Investigate the different approaches to class and student blogging

It’s also perfect for students and classes that aren’t in the position to be a Challenge participant but would like to be involved in a less formal manner.

A key benefit is commenting is an important part of blogging.  It’s often where most learnng happens.  Unfortunately most people find commenting more challenging than writing posts.

Being a helper will increase your commenting skills while giving you (or your students) opportunities to practice.

How to become a Help!

Can you help?

Just write a comment on this post to tell us you want to be a Challenger Helper and we will contact you with more information.

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Tips For Writing Your ‘About page’

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Is your ‘About page’ helping you or letting your down?  Time to check!

Why? Because your ‘About page’ is important for building your blog’s readership.  Ideally you should review it once or twice yearly!

Editing your Default About page

When you set up a new Edublogs blog it automatically comes set up with an ‘About page’. Readers access this page by clicking on About in the page links at the top of your theme or in the link in your sidebar.

The idea is you change the default text on this about page by inserting your own information — follow these instructions to edit your default ‘About page’

Image of About page

Tips for writing your About page

Writing a good ‘About Page’ is hard.

What’s written on an ‘About page’ and the types of details included is influenced by the type of blog and the intended readers.

Teacher’s personal blog

Start with telling people more about yourself as people are more likely to engage with your blog if they can relate to you as an individual. Then tell them about your blog and the reasons why you blog.

Not too long, not too short, include photos that help readers relate to you as a person.

Here’s my ‘About page’ on my personal blog.

Student blog

Your ‘About page” is like meeting someone for the first time in a new class.  Tell them a bit about who you are and your interests.  You might even want to share reasons why you blog.

Remember you need to be Internet savvy — follow all your teacher’s guidelines!

  • Only ever use your first name or a nickname
  • Never use any other student’s last name
  • Never post personal information such as your home phone number, home address, e-mail address, IM
  • Remember online is forever – Don’t write anything you wouldn’t say to your grandmother
  • Don’t write anything that could hurt anyone else
  • Don’t post photos or videos of yourself unless your teacher and parents have given you permission

Examples of student blogs:

  1. Lauren’s About page
  2. Abbey’s About page

Class blog

Think about who is your intended audience for your ‘About page’?  Your students, parents/family, or to help connect with other classes?

Below are examples of the type of information you might include for each audience — remember you can add more pages if needed (e.g. a Welcome parents page, blogging rules)

For students and/or parents:

  • What is a blog
  • The goals of the class blog
  • About the teacher(s)
  • How to interact with the blog e.g. subscribe to blog, comment on posts, guidelines for writing appropriate comments
  • Teacher(s) contact details

To connect with classes in other schools:

  • What country, state and city you are from?
  • Year (grade level), subject and age groups
  • The types of connections your class is interested in e.g. becoming blogging buddies, engaging in global projects
  • The type and size of school
  • Class or teacher contact details

For an example of a class blog, check out Mr Toft’s.ca ‘Welcome page’

About Page Examples

Can you WOW me with your About page?  I’m looking of examples of great ‘About Pages’ to share with others!

Leave a link your ‘About Page’ in the comments of this post so I can check it out!

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