Thing #12: Creating Community through Commenting

After reading "How to Comment like a King (or Queen)" I was a much more enlightened blogger.  I especially liked tip #7:  Remember the Power of Words:  Beware of Darth Commenter.  Basically this pointed out that there are people out there who will use derisive comments to wreak havoc on a bloggers psyche "like Darth Vader with a light saber"  Newbies Beware!!  I thought this was important to remember when a new blogger, you may not realize it but these types of comments can act as subtle detractors from the whole blogging experience-leaving one to lose confidence and momentum and possibly stopping a blogging career in its tracks. For the whole story go to:
 http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html

Another blog which discussed the commenting aspect of blogging was "(Drape's) Takes to Edublogger Etiquette".  There is a great discussion here (full of reader comments!) about responding to comments on one's own blog.  Should a blogger respond to all comments or just the more meaningful ones?  Is it okay to respond to some or most comments by private email or is responding publicly better?  What about never responding to comments?  These were several questions which were discussed by readers, here is the link if you wish to read more...
http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2008/05/edublogger-etiquette-responding-to.html

As far as my own comments go,  I am working on responding to 5 classmate's posts re. their blogs.  I am finding their blogs to be quite interesting!! 
As far as finding two blogs of personal interest to add comments to, that was easy.  As many of you know, I have a 4 1/2 month old daughter named Anna.  What you may  not know about Anna is that she was born with Down Syndrome.  Going through the shock and struggle of accepting this after her birth (none of the prenatal testing I did showed this possibility) and trying to learn as much  as possible,  I  went looking for blogs by other parents of young children with Down Syndrome.  I found two marvelous ones that I have been following ever since (they are listed on my sidebar) and for which I am grateful to have as a part of my continuing quest  into being the best mother and advocate for my beloved Anna that I can.  As much as I adore these two blogs however, I have never posted comments to either and this assignment has given me the courage to do so.  That in turn has made me become a part of the community of bloggers in a way that I was not before.  I must agree with what the title of thing #12 is suggesting:  we create a community when we comment and respond (whether personally or publically) to each others blogs in Blogland.  Blogging is a new sort of interactive journalling, instead of the one sided process of just writing or reading the journal as in the past, Blogging allows the writer and the reader to respond to each other in real time thus creating a personal relationship between the two in a way that has never  before been possible.

Thing #11: Library Thing

I signed up with library thing and entered about 10 of my books.  I then looked at the groups and found an interesting one called "I see dead people's books" which is a group of people who put up profiles of famous people and their personal library collections.  Want to know what Marie Antoinette or Marilyn Monroe had in their library?  How about Franz Kafka or William Shakespeare?  You can find out here!  I found this group fascinating, it even showed me which of my books I shared with these famous dead people (Marilyn M. and I shared 3 James Joyce titles, who knew she was such a reader?).  I really enjoyed Library Thing.  You can look at book reviews, write book reviews and do all kinds of fun things here.  There are a lot of members and many interesting groups to look at, including local groups in the Houston area. There is also a talk feature where members post about various literary activities they are engaged in such as the "50 book challenge" or the "readers of YA lit" discussion group.  I found many interesting things here and will definitely be back to explore when I have some time to do so.

Thing #10: Anna and Mischa as created with help from "Image Chef"

Thing #9: Useful Library Related Blogs and News Feeds

I found all of the search tools pretty easy to use, Syndicate was a little confusing but after going through the tutorial it made much more sense.  I really liked edublog which I found through Syndicate (then I noticed it hot-linked on 23 things!).  On edublog I found the winners list of best education related blogs.  "Hey Jude" is the name of the winner for best library related blog.  Her blog is very good!  I loved the section entitled "Student Tools-Let them fly!"  This has a list of great student resources and an explanation of what they do. I checked out Atomic Learning and thought that it looked like a great source for teachers who are looking for the latest educational technology and tools and how to use them.  I wonder if many districts use this?  It is a company which offers educational tools for teachers for a fee.  I did not find a search box for RSS feeds here however, which is why I went there in the first place. I couldn't enter since I did not have the SBISD pw info. 

Thing #8 RSS feeds and Google Reader

• What do you like about RSS and readers?
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?
• How can libraries/teachers/administrators use readers or take advantage of this new technology?

I was excited to learn about RSS and readers!  Now I have a way to quickly get to my favorite blogs and look up news from my favorite sites without being bogged down with ads, searching through pages, and putting in the URL everytime I want to go somewhere online.  I can also put folders together which organize the information I have found and make it even easier to access.  This technology is useful in my personal life as it adds efficiency and saves time in accomplishing several daily tasks such as reading news and keeping up with my favorite blogs,  At school it would be very effective as a tool for teacher directed work which necessitates students knowing about current events, searching through news and finding information from good, credible sources which the teacher can have saved through RSS feeds onto google reader. All educators can take advantage of this new technology in order to easily keep up with the latest information in their chosen areas as well as teach their students how to use it in order to enhance their academic tasks.  It is a great way to share news and information with colleagues and students as well, thereby keeping each other informed in areas of shared interest!

Thing #7: Cool Tools from Google

The first cool tool I messed around with was igoogle.  Here I was able to design my own personalized home page with a Japanese Teahouse Theme and personalized gadgets such as Art of the day, Cool facts, Quote of the day, Joke of the day, recipes, and more!  Next I tried out Google Earth's Earthview.  This allows the user to choose any spot on Earth and zoom in to see a close up view.  My aunt is currently on a cruise to the Bahamas and Key West so I tried zooming in on these places to see where she would be going. I was able to get so close I could see the rooftops of the houses. It also gave me options to zoom in on points of interest.  For example, when I zoomed in on Key West it gave me the option to look at Ernest Hemingway's house and several museums.  Google Earth has lots of tools that are fun to use.  One which I thought was really neat was the Explore feature which allows you to go under the ocean, to mars, the moon, and more!  Students could do so much with Google Earth. They could look at the real places which they are studying,  study real time maps, and even explore Ancient Rome in 3D. 

Thing #6: Mashups and 3rd party sites.

I messed around with mosaic and created a photo mosaic with my photos.  I was then able to order my creation from them if I wished.  I didn't wish to order it from them, but it did inspire me to go ahead and make my own version of mosaic on my own computer where I could print out my own creation.  I also looked at mappr which I found interesting as it allows one to access photos from a particular location on a map.  You can also add your own photos to the site so others can access them,  I think this is so cool!  Finally I explored Flickr Color Picker. With this you can click on a spot on a color wheel and color picker will give you lots of pictures which are focused on that shade of color in the color spectrum.  The photos are BEAUTIFUL!!!

1.  A  Color Picker  2.  A collage I made in Flickr Mosaic