Thing #4

I believe that it stated in the Blue Skunk Blog Your Comments?, that writers make their writings public because they want to be read.  By commenting, those that respond to posts fill this need for the writer by assuring them that they haven't wasted their time.  This also helps create a personal connection for the writer and the people who respond, creating a sense of community and obvious interaction.  Of course, it's important to keep comments constructive and polite.  Before reading Your Comments?, I had never heard the term troll used as defined in that blog.  However, it certainly seems like an appropriate term for the type of comments that it describes.

While "trolling" through the blogs of classmates, I picked up on the following posts:

• Amanda Ezell's Thing #9 - Amanda obviously enjoyed creating the magazine cover of her and her brother.  I liked seeing the product of her creative labors.
• Rebecca Austin's Thing #12 - I chose this because I wanted to see what app. someone else in the class had explored.  It sounds like Rebecca has a lot of experience with Google Apps. 
• Brittany Adam's Thing #12 - Just like with Rebecca, I was curious about what Brittany discovered.  Brittany also chose Google Calendar, and her insights have made me more deteremined to utilize these and other useful tools.
• Jamie Edward's Thing #7 - One of the great things about reviewing other people's blogs is not just the content.  I had to mention Jamie's because it is not only very detailed, it also creatively displayed. 
• Tabitha Sirmans' New Thing #6 - Tabitha's blog is a great example of how teacher's can find great tools to use by viewing blogs.  Slidestory.com sounds great, Tabitha.

In other blogs, I think the following will be useful down the road:

• In Free Technology for Teachers, there was an article on how you could spend $2000.  This doesn't seem like a lot of money when you consider how much things cost in the technology field.  This article points out how much of a difference it can make though.
• Meeting to Meet?  This was in Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?, and I couldn't resist.  The number of meetings that the decision makers in our office have to attend is a standing joke with our office.  This article focuses on what should be the purpose of meetings.  I think I'll share this with those decision makers!