Thing #4 - Commentary

Why does commenting help create a sense of community and interaction? Well, because otherwise, a blog is just a diary! The cool thing about the Internet in general -- and blogs, specifically -- is that they're interactive! (And hey, as teachers, we yearn to make our teaching as engaging and interactive as possible! So blogging is like teaching in lots of ways!) If we comment, it gives the blogger a chance to do a lot of things:

-defend his/her point of view;
-thank readers for insightful comments and help;
-see what others think about what they posted; and
-look at his/her work in a more "rounded," critical way.

As a commenter, it gives you the chance to have more back-and-forth! It encourages you to pay closer attention to what your reading if your focus is "what do I want to comment about?" - and it forces an inner monologue. (See my update to Thing #3!)

I chose to read "10 Techniques to Get More Comments" and the one about real names vs. pseudonyms for commenting. Here are the 2 points I found important:

1. I understand all the reasons for choosing a specific name/brand/alias for commenting -- I have a "blog brand" outside the 23 Things arena that I use for blogging, Flickr, Twitter, etc. that I even have as my home email address username -- but I think the commenter left out a reason that I think a lot of people choose an alias... Sometimes people don't use pseudonyms because they need privacy -- sometimes they use them because they're chicken! I see a ton of comments that are overly critical and/or downright mean, and the posters don't use their real names, I believe, so they can't be "tracked down" as the arsonist of a flame war.

2. I like the idea of commenting on posts people leave -- and rewarding them -- to encourage more blog comments. And back to how blogging is like teaching... Kids will interact if there are incentives involved! I know I would definitely check back on a blog post more often if the author - especially an author on whom I have a "blog-crush" - would even acknowledge my post.

One book I really want to get is No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. It's about improving your blog (and, I assume about leveraging comments.) I've read Mighty Girl, the blog of that book's author, for years.

The five 23 Things blogs I chose to read, discussing why I chose them and the comments I left, are below. I picked which blogs to comment on purely based on the interestingness of the blogs' names!

-Valerie's Views. I know Valerie - she and I work together at Floyd! I posted here to say hi and that I was reading her blog!
-teachartiscool. I love art, and I can imagine that the name of the blog is indeed true. I posted here to ask advice about Flickr as an art "storage" venue.
-Loving Summer. I couldn't resist checking this one out, since Summer's my name! What, you mean my husband hasn't already formed a blog called "Loving Summer"?!? =) I posted here to share my fandom of Google Calendar.
-Technocricket. I posted here about my love of image generators, and I shared another one with her.
-sassy says what. I posted here to address her concerns about private photos on Flickr.

Outside our group, I choose to comment on the following blogs, discussing why I chose them and the comments I left:

-I'm gonna take the advice about being a good blogger and comment on my own Flickr stream (which is pretty much a blog) to encourage/reward commenting. I'm Iridesce, responding to a friend of mine's comment about growing up in Amarillo here.

-As I mentioned before, Mighty Girl has always been one of my favorite blogs. She posts about weird things she observes in the world, about parenting, and about design. She's branched out and posts other places, and this post was about something she wrote for another blog. My comment is #8 here. I wanted to add to the list of fantastic clocks, as well as point out a funny (to me!) observation about the Communist Ballerina clock.

Comments? =)

Thing #2 - Creating My Blog and Avatar

I decided on my posting name and the name of my blog by a need for creativity and my love of math! Instead of a simple enumeration of 23 things, I hope that this blog becomes an exponentially powerful learning experience, wherein I take each of the things and build on them so that they become way more powerful than they are when taken additively. So, yeah, "Things to the Twenty-Third Power." My posting name is my first name, conclusively anonymous but not, since my name's so unique.

My experience in creating the blog was pretty easy, since I've done it before - Blogger makes it simple for you. (Even simple enough, I dare say, for a 5th grader!)

My avatar reflect your personality because it's math-tastic! I created an avatar that looks kind of like my real self... I have red longish hair, and I stand in front of a math-filled chalk board sometimes... But she is, I have to say, slimmer and cuter! I didn't give her my body type - but not because I didn't want to accurately reflect it, but because they didn't offer that cool t-shirt in plus sizes! Tee hee!