Thing #4: To Be Continued

No matter what bloggers say, they are writing because they hope someone else will read and appreciate their thoughts. Otherwise, they would just be scribbling away in an old fashion journal. Unfortunately, The 10 commandments of blog commenting says that approximately 90% of people reading blogs never leave comments. I'll admit that I'm guilty of this. I’ve never read blogs regularly, largely because I didn't fully understand what the point of them was. So I would read what someone had written and move on. This experience has helped me realize that blogging, unlike reading traditional books and websites, is about more than a one-way transferring of information. Blogs create a community of individuals who share ideas with each other to expand their view of the world.
I don't think I really realized how important comments are until the day I logged in and saw someone had left me one! My thought process was something like, "OMG! Someone read what I wrote! And they thought it was interesting enough to leave me feedback!! Whatdtheysaywhatdtheysay??" After reading what Eddie wrote, I was compelled to respond. Although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, ProBlogger pointed out that doing this will increase the amount of comments on my blog (If I’m not comfortable commenting on myself, why should anyone else?)! But then, just like CoolCatTeacher said would happen in How to comment like a king (or queen!) , I went to Eddie's blog and read his posts. Whether he was aware of it or not, Eddie had put up an advertisement for his own blog by commenting on mine. When you see someone has read something you wrote, you want to know more about the person, who admired (or disagreed) with your insight,. What's more, after reading some of his posts, I felt like leaving him comment, furthering the sense community.
Once this community is developed, you become more aware of your audience (and/or the simple fact that you do have one). With this awareness, you may change the way you approach a topic, or even what topics you choose to talk about. Example: when writing this entry, I found myself thinking about the fact that Eddie may read what I had written about our “interaction”.

To Be Continued...

Thing #3: BlogBuddies

As a future elementary school teacher, I see blogging as a great way to keep in contact with parents (assuming I'm in a district where home computers are common). I could post weekly updates on what the class will be doing, including reminders for anything they might need to bring to school (pictures for a class project, show-and-tell, etc). I could also post information on upcoming field trips, and attach a downloadable copy of the permission slip!

We could also have a Class Blog that focuses more on work the class has done. Each student would contribute to it, and we could share it with people/classrooms in other cities, states, or countries. We could even have a BlogBuddy, like a PenPal, as a way to exchange information with other classrooms almost instantaneously!

Thing #2: Attack of the BLOG

I always thought blogs were weird. What kind of word is "blog"? Why in the world would you name something that? It never sounded like something I wanted to do - Although I did make one once upon a time after one of my friends started writing one and I wanted to be cool like her. Then I realized I wasn't spending the summer traveling around Central America and didn't have anything "interesting" to talk about. So I abandoned it. But I digress.

As blogs have become more common, and I realized what they actually are, I've gotten more comfortable with the idea of sharing random thoughts with strangers. But I still thing "blog" is a silly thing to call it. Which is one of the reasons I chose to call my blog "blog" (the other reason being I like the alliteration it makes with "Burton's").

For my username, I just used my name; I like it, other people say it's nice, and I couldn't think of anything creative. I tried to make my avatar look like the real me too, and put her outside, because it's one of my favorite places to be :)

Thing #1: Learning all your live-long life

After watching the 7 & 1/2 Habits online tutorial, I think the easiest habits for me (they tie together) would be 2. Accept responsibility for your own learning, and 4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. I have always been surrounded by very supportive people, which has developed a sense of capability in me that some of my peers seem to lack. And any time I start to doubt myself, my mom is ready to tell me what an "intelligent young woman" I am!

The habits I struggle the most with are 1. Begin with the end in mind, and 3. View problems as challenges you can learn from. I tend to get very focused on the task at hand and forget why I'm even doing it and how I can benefit from what I'm trying to accomplish. Or I make a goal that's so broad, I lose track of how what I'm doing day-to-day affects my progress! I think if I followed the suggestions they made at the end of the video - writing down my goal, make a list of tasks to accomplish, etc - those habits won't be as difficult for me.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to playing with all the Web 2.0 tools in this activity with my goal of becoming an elementary school teacher in mind! I grew up around computers, so the experience I had setting up my blog was nothing unusual - I actually think I set one up a few years ago.. but never bothered posting anything. Now I'm excited and ready to see what else the internet has to offer that I didn't know about!