Quality Commenting Lesson

Mrs. Yollis' class is participating in the International Student Blogging Challenge!

The focus of week 2 is composing QUALITY comments!

Parts of a Blog

Blogging has many parts: the post, the comments, and the sidebar. If you do a good job with all of the parts, your blog will be more interesting. Today we will focus on quality comments! The comment section is where the blog comes to life and a learning community is built. 

Content is key!

In our class, we evaluate our blog comments. A one-point comment is a general comment that doesn't add very much to the post.   Example: I like your blog. Please visit mine! 

A two-point comment adds something to the comment conversation. A commenter might compliment the writer in a specific way or add new information. Another idea is to make a connection. Maybe the post reminds you of an experience that you've had. Share that connection!  Try to end your comment with a relevant question. That way, an interesting conversation can develop.

What should I say in my comment?

Here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' students called How to Compose a Quality Comment!  It offers FIVE tips to help you take your comments to the next level!

Mrs. Yollis made a poster using the five-steps to writing a quality comment. You are free to use this infographic, but please give credit and link back to this like to open our comments with a greeting and end with a closing. We choose to do this as it makes it easier for us to follow the conversation within a comment section.

Here is a poster that Mrs. Yollis made! 

-For Advanced Bloggers-

Some bloggers like to use HTML code to make their comments better.  Learning to write HTML code, or HTML tags, is a somewhat simple way to take your comment to the next level.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a language.

*     *     *     *     *

To write HTML code, use the following symbols:

Important: Do not add a space between the HTML tag and the word or sentence.

                                                                                                     

1.  To put text in italics, place this HTML code around the text:

 

 

The sentence will look like this when published:

  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

2.  To make text bold, place this HTML code around the text:

                           

The sentence will look like this when published:  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

 
3.  To make a hyperlink, it gets a little tricky.

Use the following HTML code around the URL and add your own link word/words:

  [The URL is the address of the web page. It starts with http://www…]

The HTML code below:

Will become this hyperlink when published:

                                                                 Mrs. Yollis’ Website

Sometimes it is hard to remember the HTML codes. I keep an HTML word document on my desktop with all the common codes, especially the one to create a hyperlink. Here is a video demonstrating how easy it is to a create a hyperlink if you have the code set up in a Word doc.

If you like to add fun shapes...here are those codes!

What did you learn about quality commenting? 

 Why is it important to proofread a comment before pressing publish? 

Each one of my third graders has their own blogs. They would LOVE a comment from you! 



Click here to find all the third-grade blogs. 
Comments welcomed!

Emoji Math! (Student Blogging Challenge)

We are part of Edublog's Student Blogging Challenge. 

This week it is fun with Emojis!

There are a lot of options, but we chose Emoji math!

First, we looked at some sample Emoji Puzzles from Solvemoji. We got ideas about how to set up equations and use known numbers to solve unknown symbols. 

Next, we created three equations on scratch paper. We thought about the unknown numbers and how to solve each equation. Then we made a key to help us solve our own puzzle.  After lots of tries, we were ready to create our Emoji puzzles on a Google Doc. It was fun to pick a theme! 

To create in a Google Doc:

1. Open a Google Doc

2. Go to INSERT in the menu bar

3. Select SPECIAL CHARACTERS

4. Select EMOJI

5. Select the topic or theme to use (See below) There are many!

Here are our first few puzzles. More to come! 

Mrs. Yollis' Emoji Math!

What is the value of the chicken drumstick?

Ivy's Emoji Math!

What is the value of the sun?

Emily E.'s Emoji Math!

What is the value of the green snake?

Evan Emoji Math!

What is the value of the soccer ball?

Kate's Emoji Math!

What is the value of the sunflower?

Emily E.'s  Emoji Math!

What is the value of the bear?

Where you able to solve any of our puzzles? 

If so, leave us a comment with your solution!

If you created a puzzle, please leave your blog address and we will head over and solve yours!

(More puzzles will be added here throughout the week. 

Check back soon!)

Student Blogging Challenge ~ Quality Commenting!

Mrs. Yollis' class is participating in the International Student Blogging Challenge!

The focus of week 2 is composing QUALITY comments!

Parts of a Blog

Blogging has many parts: the post, the comments, and the sidebar. If you do a good job with all of the parts, your blog will be more interesting. Today we will focus on quality comments! The comment section is where the blog comes to life and a learning community is built. 

Content is key!

In our class, we evaluate our blog comments. A one-point comment is a general comment that doesn't add very much to the post.   Example: I like your blog. Please visit mine! 

A two-point comment adds something to the comment conversation. A commenter might compliment the writer in a specific way or add new information. Another idea is to make a connection. Maybe the post reminds you of an experience that you've had. Share that connection!  Try to end your comment with a relevant question. That way, an interesting conversation can develop.

What should I say in my comment?

Here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' students called How to Compose a Quality Comment!  It offers FIVE tips to help you take your comments to the next level!

Mrs. Yollis made a poster using the five-steps to writing a quality comment. You are free to use this infographic, but please give credit and link back to this blog.

Comment by Linda Yollis

We like to open our comments with a greeting and end with a closing. We choose to do this as it makes it easier for us to follow the conversation within a comment section.

How do you get comments typed and published?

-For Advanced Bloggers-

Some bloggers like to use HTML code to make their comments better.  Learning to write HTML code, or HTML tags, is a somewhat simple way to take your comment to the next level.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a language.

*     *     *     *     *

To write HTML code, use the following symbols:

Important: Do not add a space between the HTML tag and the word or sentence.

                                                                                                     

1.  To put text in italics, place this HTML code around the text:

 

 

The sentence will look like this when published:

  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

2.  To make text bold, place this HTML code around the text:

                           

The sentence will look like this when published:  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

 
3.  To make a hyperlink, it gets a little tricky.

Use the following HTML code around the URL and add your own link word/words:

  [The URL is the address of the web page. It starts with http://www…]

The HTML code below:

Will become this hyperlink when published:

                                                                 Mrs. Yollis’ Website

Sometimes it is hard to remember the HTML codes. I keep an HTML word document on my desktop with all the common codes, especially the one to create a hyperlink. Here is a video demonstrating how easy it is to a create a hyperlink if you have the code set up in a Word doc.

If you like to add fun shapes...here are those codes!

My class, DO NOT sign into anything. Instead, choose NAME/URL

Use FIRST NAMES ONLY. 

What did you learn about quality commenting? 

 Why is it important to proofread a comment before pressing publish? 

Here are some comment starters:

What do you use to learn typing?

What are some famous landmarks in your country and have you visited them? 

What are some traditional foods from your area? 

What are some professional teams in your area? 

What languages do you speak? 

The Student Blogging Challenge Starts on October 6, 2019

We are excited to start Edublog's Student Blogging Challenge on Monday! 

It runs for eight weeks, is free, and is a wonderful way to begin blogging with your students.  

Here are the weekly challenges! 

In the hopes that other teachers will consider blogging with their students, I recently talked about the benefits of blogging on a TLC Ninja podcast with my good friends @CoffeeNancy and @NowaTechie. 

Click on the red circle and give a listen! 

Here is a link to the TLC site.

We are joining the Student Blogging Challenge as a class, and we will join as individual student bloggers in the spring.

*     *     *     *     *

What do you like about blogging?

Share some good digital citizenship tips you've learned! 

Connecting Through Blogging

We are a part of the Student Blogging Challenge. It is a wonderful 10 week series of blogging challenges to practice and promote reading and writing, digital citizenship, geography, and fun! 

Week four is about getting caught up on posts or free choice. As a free choice idea,  I encouraged students to explore their Flag Counter gadget that shows visitors and create a post about a visiting country. 

Students were excited to look at the flags of the visitors from the first three weeks and find countries on the map. Sheila (pen name) came up to me with her laptop and showed me her Flag Counter. There were only two visitors. Both were from the United States. 

 

I immediately turned to my Professional/Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter. A PLN is a group of people who enjoy helping and sharing with one another via social media. As an educator,  if I need ideas, some inspiration, or some Flag counters, my PLN is the ticket. I encourage all educators to begin building and contributing to a PLN on Twitter. Being connected benefits my students and my teaching practice!

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

How did I connect with my PLN?

I tweeted out the message below. I included three educators who are big supporters of educational blogging, @langwitches, @kathleen_morris, and @gcouros. I knew they could help us get visitors!

What happened next?

 1) Langwitches retweeted (RT) the message to her followers. Notice she included members of her PLN who support blogging.

2)   Kathleen_Morris retweeted (RT) the message to her followers. Notice she included two hashtags. Hashtags helped connect the message to groups following a hashtag or topic. 

3. gcouros retweeted (RT) the message and added a message encouraging other educators to not only visit the blog but to comment. 

Results: Visitor flags from all over the world! 

Bonus: Visitor comments from all over the world!

Not only did we get Flag Counter dots, but we received comments! Lots of comments! The enthusiasm for reading and writing, for geography, for collaboration was immediate!

As any good blogger knows, commenting back to your readers builds readership and community. However, there were so many comments, "Sheila" could not keep up. So, the class paired up and worked as a team to comment back! They called it Sheila's Commenting Marathon! 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

  Here are some comments and replies. If you want to read them all, here is a link: Sheila's Special Stories. 

Thank you to Mr. Couros, Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Tolisano for promoting student blogging and teachers! Thank you to the teachers and parents who support learning through blogging. 

*     *     *

What do you think about the value of a PLN? 

How did you contribute to the marathon?

What do you like about connecting via blogging?