Thing #12 - Creating Community Through Commenting

For me personally, commenting in the world of technology always seems to be the most difficult part of belonging to an online community or participating in an online class. Since I've been taking my graduate classes, one thing I have learned to do better is comment in an online forum. Most professors will give you guidelines for commenting but it should be common sense that if you're not commenting in a social networking forum such as a friend's status on Facebook, that the comment should be of substance. One point about commenting that I liked was from Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog was to "write a meaningful comment" and that "if you don't care, then don't comment" (Davis 2006). While in a classroom setting, we may not have this choice but when participating in any other online blog community this rings entirely true. It is best not to waste your time or the time of other readers and the blog owner. Another point about commenting that I agreed with was from Meredith Farkas' Information Wants to Be Free blog where she discusses sharing regardless of how important you may or may not feel about what you have to say. She writes that "sharing will encourage others to share and when there’s a culture of sharing, when we’re all sharing knowledge, we will all benefit" (Farkas 2008) which goes along with a popular saying in education that "on our worst day, we are some kid's best hope." Simply stated what we have to say can and often does have meaning regardless of our personal opinion on our own thoughts and comments.