Responding to Blog Posts

As part of blogging, you are required to respond to some of your classmates' blogs.  You need to go beyond "Nice post!" and "Interesting facts!". 

First, when writing your blog post, you need to make sure that your classmates have something to respond to.  You do not want to list a whole bunch of facts.  Facts are hard to respond to.  Instead, your post needs to provoke thought.  This way, your classmates will be thinking about the ideas that you put forth and in their responses they can extend  your ideas or challenge your ideas and provide reasons to support their challenges.

I strongly suggest you thoroughly read through this PDF "Tips for Leaving a Good Blog Comment".  You can access it here:

http://goo.gl/dgpmp

The above PDF gives an example of a good blog post, as well as "dos" and "don'ts" for leaving a blog comment.

Here are some comment or discussion starters (courtesy of Peter Skillen) to help you when responding to your classmates' blogs:



I agree with you because …
I disagree with you because…
Check…
I think…
I believe…
Have you thought about…
Maybe…
I am confused…
Another explanation…
I don’t understand…
You need to…
Your journal entry would be better if…