Thing #4

Commenting lets a blogger know that they are not just talking to themselves, even if that is what blogging feels like.  By sharing ideas and thoughts, whether they agree or disagree, comments create a conversation on the blog.  It is this feeling of an ongoing conversation that creates the sense of community.  That is why it is important to be gracious and thoughtful in your commenting.  It's ok to disagree, just don't be rude about it.  Having a different viewpoint doesn't need to turn in to a personal attack.  I am new to blogging so I have not yet experienced anyone being rude on a blog, but it was enough of an issue on one of the blogs that I am now following that the author of the blog had to actually block someone from commenting on his site.
The second point about blogging that I found to be important is how to get more comments on your blog.  Unless you really are just talking to yourself (in which case you should just a buy a journal and write it down there) a blog is somewhat incomplete without comments.  A blogger needs feedback, some input to let them know if what they are posting is relevant.  A good way to get comments is to ask for them so please tell me, what do you think about my blog?
The blogs I have chosen to follow are (drum roll):  Conrad C'deBaca (hope I spelled that correctly), Sandra Febus, Tammy Waters, Mary Barczek, and Jonathan Long.  I chose Conrad because he is in my diversity class and always has interesting posts on the discussion board. I chose Sandra because she ranked 'setting a goal' as the hardest habit, just like me.  I chose Tammy because she ranked 'setting a goal' as the easiest habit, the exact opposite of me.  I chose Mary because she likes blogging and was following blogs before this class, but it's all new to me.  I chose Jonathan for two rather superficial reasons:  Monty Python and the sheep.  The two other blogs I am following are:  Dangerously Irrelevant and Spencer's Scratch Pad.  They are both blogs about education.  Dangerously Irrelevant focuses a lot on technology in education and Spencer's Scratch Pad is authored by an English teacher.  Both blogs were listed on the top education blogs for 2010.
I have only made a few comments so far.  I made some comments to share useful information and others simply to share a thought or agree with a comment someone else made.