Thing 12

I admit, I'm one of those bloggers that reads on a site and leaves without posting a comment. It's very intimidating to post comments. I found it really interesting that 90% of people do just that and that only 1% of readers actually contribute to conversations. Two points I find relevant are: responding to a post with ideas, questions, information, etc, instead of just a statement of agreement, and responding back to those who post comments on your blog. As I have been reading other blogs I find that many people do leave comments that are just agreements, like: "Yeah!" That doesn't really tell the reader or the author anything. If I am planning to use blogs in my classroom I would absolutely want my students to respond with something more thought out that just an interjection. On the second point, I never really gave any thought to responding to postings. That caught me off guard a little because I really just didn't even think about it. If the whole idea is to start conversations with people all over the world, then it only makes sense to respond because otherwise conversation isn't really taking place.
I responded on several blogs. There are some really great ideas out there. It was interesting to read what other people are thinking and learning from this exercise.
I used the blogs I have in my reader to respond. I have only just had them there to read and I haven't really responded at all. I chose writing and reading lessons because there was information about a conference with Lucy Calkins and I was interested to see what she has going on since Spring Branch is moving to the CCP model for writing. I also read a posting for math facts games. It had ideas that are not new to teaching, but since I'm changing grade levels this year, it was a good reminder for me. The site is http://www.math-lessons.ca/blog/2007/12/14/using-games-to-teach-math/