Quality Commenting on Kidblog

Since we seem to be getting the hang of posting to our student blogs, I thought it was a good time to venture into the world of commenting. A number of my smarty-pants 7 year olds very quickly figured this out on their own but we hadn't set criteria for leaving comments.
I referred back to my tweep, @pernilleripp for a great way to explain the type of comments we want to write. We discussed and compared the difference between "highway comments" and "dead end comments". It always feels great to get a comment and know that there are people out there reading your posts, but we are hoping to generate discussion with our comments.
Dead end comments are kind and usually involve a compliment. For example, "Great job on your post, Leslie!" A highway comment is kind and complimentary but it also opens the door for discussion to begin. For example, "I really enjoyed reading your post, Leslie. I am reading it in Vancouver, Canada. Can you find that on a map? In Vancouver it is warm and sunny right now. What is the weather like in Winnipeg?" One of our main goals in commenting on blog posts is to start a conversation. When a commenter asks a question, the blogger can reply to their comment with the answer and perhaps another question.

Our criteria for quality commenting on blog posts is:

• Be kind and appropriate.
• Give a compliment.
• Ask a question.
• Make a connection.
• Re-read your comment for spelling, punctuation and upper case letters.
• Sign your first name only.

We would love to hear from you too! You can comment to us on our class blog, here, or on our Kidblogs as well.

Quality Commenting on Blogs

today we are lurning how to leave coments. these are the steps you hafe to fallow to make a cwallite coment

1. read the post
2. compliment
3. connection
4. question?
5. re-read name

today where bloging in the computer lab. where bloging all diffrint things like the song ISS is somebudy singing. there is 20 pepule bloging today some pepule are allso bloging about farie books.

Alexa

This week we are starting the important conversation about quality blog commenting. Since we have just been blogging together for a few weeks in grade 2, it can be a bit overwhelming to learn the criteria and all the buttons to click to get a comment posted. I am more than impressed with the patience and perseverance with our children in learning new skills like this. The quality commenting, quality blogging and global audience conversation will continue through the year :)

When the children are leaving a comment on a blog, they are encouraged to:

1. Read the post to understand what the author wanted to share.
2. Leave a compliment, say something nice about what was written.
3. Make a connection to their lives and what they know.
4. Ask a question.
5. Re-read the comment to fix mistakes.
6. Leave their first name.

Since we started writing blog comments I have been getting emails every evening to approve the comments the children have been sending from home. This is awesome!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)