Thing # 4: To Comment or Not to Comment.....

For Thing # 4, the following was required of us:

• explain why commenting helps create a sense of community and interaction

I must say that prior to this class, I thought that blogs were impersonal. Remember, I am new to this game of blogging. But, from what I can tell so far, commenting on blogs does connect you to others with a similar interest and there is potential for a support network to blossom from it. By commenting on blogs you can meet people from all across the country and maybe the world.

• discuss two other points from the readings about commenting that you found important

I think asking a question when posting on a blog is a good practice. Yes, it can draw attention to your post. Is that all I want? No, I want to know what others think and see how I can open myself to new ideas. I am all for new ideas to solve problems. The other important point regarding commenting on blogs had to do with sarcastic remarks. The Cool Cat Teacher Blog said not to use sarcasm when posting on blogs. I agree with The Cool Cat Teacher Blog despite the fact that I like making sarcastic remarks to make things funny. That is just me. But, blogging and sarcasm will not work well together because there is just too much that can be misinterpreted from it and cause negative tension. Any thoughts on this?

• give the names of the seven blogs (5 from our group + 2 others of your choice) you selected to read and comment on and tell why you selected them

Here are the blogs I chose to follow and why.
     Emily Ellison. After reading her posting for Thing #1, I found that we have so many things in common that I had to choose her as one of my five. In my comment to her I gave her some examples on our similar experiences and mentioned that I was hoping to learn how to make blogging a useful learning tool in my classroom. 
     Matthew Nixon. Since we have so few males in the class, I thought it would be a good idea to get a male's perspective on how to "begin with the end in mind" and how he deals with problems versus challenges.
     Ester Yum. I chose to follow Ester's blog because her strength is my greatest weakness. I admired the way she went back to her birth country to teach English for a year. I commented how I thought she did something my Hispanic family would have been totally against, which was great. 
     Melissa Suss. I chose to follow Melissa's blog mainly because I think her playful strength is bound to rub off on me.  On her post I gave her an idea how she can incorporate blogging for her future PE classes.
    Theresa Hines. Overall, I thought her blog had a lot of personality and her strength is admirable. Theresa mentioned in her blog that she has come up with different strategies which have helped her be a lifelong learner. I asked her to reveal one of her strategies due to my curiosity.

http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/is-your-lesson-perfect/
     The above link is to a blog titled, the creative language class. It is a blog for foreign language teachers that covers a variety of topics like, using stations, tech applications, class routines, teacher problems, and much more. I commented on a topic called Is your lesson perfect? I mentioned how great it was to hear of ways veteran teacher handle unexpected situations.
http://teachinglearningspanish.blogspot.com/
     The seventh and last blog I commented on is called teaching learning Spanish. One of the things that drew me to this blog was that it has been active since 2008. Its longevity proves that is has merit to me. It offers a lot of creative yet affordable ways to teach Spanish. I commented about an application that can be used on I-pods where Spanish Language learners can listen to news casts that are spoken slowly. I commented on how helpful this will be since native Spanish speakers tend to speak very rapidly while the target language learner will have difficulty in keeping up.