Comment on Will real newspapers bite the dust? by Paul C I agree with everything you say. I would find it very hard to part with The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. It’s not the same reading it online. With the American campaign and election on Tuesday I wonder how many get the overview with the short sound bites and concise overview. Where is the depth of analysis and the cogent evaluation? I am surprised when I poll my students about how they prefer to get their news, and it’s not the newspaper. Educators are needed more than ever to resist the tide of a visual, jolt orientated world. Comment on Education technology for beginners by John Larkin Thanks Tony, the unit lends itself to ’storytelling history’. You can share episodes with the students and then draw their attention to the sources. They can also share the stories of their grandparents. In years past students have shared the stories of relative who fought on the ‘other side’. That made the lessons more interesting. I will share a few more HyperCard stacks in the future… Cheers, John Comment on Education technology for beginners by Tony Searl Gee I enjoyed this post John. As a fellow passionate teacher of history who also uses family narratives to illustrate the NSW stage 5 curriculum, I am in awe of your efforts. I bet your students are totally immersed in your WW2 lessons. Love your work John regards Tony Comment on Fix for broken embedded Jaiku links by John Larkin Kevin, you are welcome. Jaiku’s lifestreaming capability is excellent. It is useful that all your feeds can appear in one place is such an elegant manner. The word balloons, interactivity and the design in appealing. I guess it is web 2.0 eye candy. But what the heck, I could fully customise the colour palette so that it would match my web site. I could also cram it into my narrow sidebar by reducing the width. It sits there looking inviting. It does act like a “What’s New?” The Twitter badges look ugly in comparison. I need to add a few more streams to the Jaiku. Sure Twitter is more popular and it serves that purpose. It even survived some rough patches this year. But Jaiku is a very different beast for me. It is my little lifestreaming window. Cheers, John Comment on Fix for broken embedded Jaiku links by Kevin John, thanks for the mention! Jaiku held so much promise; I certainly love the features it had, including the built-in lifestreaming capability. I guess twitter is still the most predominent microblogging tool around, it gained traction with the American microcelebs and it was simply the power of network effect from there. Comment on Education technology for beginners by SJ I know that it is very enjoyable to teach. I am willing to teach anybody who is willing to learn. Comment on Education technology for beginners by John reflects on Hypercard journeys « Otterman speaks… […] the post, “Education technology for beginners,” by John Larkin. Watershed, 25 Oct […] Comment on The eighth of the eighth of the eighth ~ my birthday by ian Thanks for a nice blog - i am from Dapto, and I stumbled on your site whilst searhing for “jimmy and the boys” the punk rock band. Take care. Ian N Comment on eFest2008 ~ Nanyang Technological University by Christopher Tan Just to let you know, I created a blog at http://christophertan.wordpress.com Comment on Can one comment too often? by Ken Allan Kia ora John! Well, I think you have a few answers to your question and most of them go the same way. I am an avid commenter, a bit like Sue. I agree with the idea that blogs ARE for commenting. If the blogger doesn’t want comments they can switch comments off and have themselves a web1.0 page. Yet my recent experience has been that not every blogger likes lots of comments, especially if they engage in conversation - such as they do frequently on Clay Burell’s posts. Some of my comments have been long enough to be good size posts. But some bloggers like that. You can’t win them all. I’d better keep this seemly. Well done for stimulating some interesting looooong comments. Ka kite from Middle-earth Comment on Can one comment too often? by John Larkin Hi Clay, Thank you. My comments are next to ‘godliness’… does that make us two parts of the Holy Trinity. Which of the three are you? Who is the third? Yes, my comments were being spammed. I am not sure why. Perhaps too many were short and pithy. Who knows? Perhaps some were deliberately spammed by blog authors? Regarding blog burn-out. I sent you an email. Essentially, do not let it concern you. Blogging is not an obligation but an outlet. Please read my email and go from there. Cheers, John. Comment on Can one comment too often? by Clay Burell John, John, some people can comment too much - but not you. Your comments are next to godliness (especially the “blue” ones). A question I’ll return serve with: What do you do when you start to burn out on blogging? I’m sort of there (and that’s why I’m shaky with replying to comments - I tire easily these days). I think it has to do with my national politics, among other things. And btw, your comments often do get caught in spam, for some reason. More than most. Comment on Our sponsored child by John Larkin Thanks Paul and Ken. It just seemed a natural thing to do. My wife and I have been hoping to have a family for years but no success. IUI, IVF and ICSI have not been successful. Frustrating, saddening and stressful. Perhaps one day. Comment on Can one comment too often? by John Larkin Thanks Siva. I will keep up the comments. That provide me with more latitude. Comment on Our sponsored child by Ken allan Tēnā koe John. What a precious gift you have given to Sandagdorj. I wish you well to enjoy his growing. ka kite from Middle-earth Comment on Can one comment too often? by Otterman Comment away dude! I never did keep up with the cocomment thing - too many browsers. Treat it like bits of warm goodness you are helping to spread around the net. Comment on Our sponsored child by Paul C How wonderful to sponsor a child like this over the years and to receive a visible reminder of the real needs in the world. It’s also a great reminder for children in the family to establish this emotional bond. Thanks for the reminder of Blog Action Day with a focus on poverty. You have provided me with the subject of my post tonight. Comment on Can one comment too often? by John Larkin Michael, noted. ^_^ Comment on eFest2008 ~ Nanyang Technological University by Christopher Tan Hi John, can you please send the powerpoint slides for presentation that you did at NTU. I had to leave early, and I must say that I really enjoyed and benefited from the talk. Thanks. Comment on Teaching Australian history by Jason McKee Personally I like the way that History is taught in NSW. As a History teacher I have a selection of a variety of cultures and civilisations pre-1900AD. The Stage 5 Australian History units where doomed from the outset as there were far too many topics and too little time to deliver them. If the Dept. is serious about History then perhaps they could structure the course similar to the way senior History is taught i.e. A single core (such as “Australians at War” and “The Aboriginal Experience”) for years 9 and 10 which have common exam questions such as short answer response and two elective topics, one social and one political for each year. Finally one personality. This would allow teachers to develop locally oriented programs or some that might actually interest students. All exams could be generic extended response such as the current HSC Modern and Ancient, this would allow the teaching of the skills of History in the senior years rather than response writing techniques which currently takes a lot of the time. Comment on Can one comment too often? by Michael Doyle Yes Comment on Can one comment too often? by John Larkin Hi Sarah, Paul and Sue. Thank you for the comments. How ironic. My post about comments is generating comments. That is rather nice. Thank you. I dropped an email to Akismet and they have asked me to post a comment on a specific blog that they use to check. They will revert after that. Yesterday I gently inquired with two bloggers upon whose blogs my comments failed to appear. Both replied that the comments had turned up in spam. Both are notable bloggers. They apologised and reversed the spam setting for the comments. Sue, I am constantly visiting other people’s blogs. It is my Twitter. I am using a combination of Google Reader and NetNewsWire. I subscribe, share and categorise via Google Reader. I export the OPML and import into NetNewsWire. That tool allows me to rapidly scan the posts, point to a site, read and comment rapidly. Sarah, I try and avoid writing silly things although I have published a few relatively ‘blue’ posts on Clay’s blog. I signed up for CoComment Sue yet I I have neglected its use. I will get into it again. Paul, thank you for the feedback. I shall skip across to your blog now! Cheers, John Comment on Boon Lay MRT & Bus Interchange by John Larkin Thanks for the comment Nic. I like to take little videos like that. Playing it backwards added a little suspense to what you may see. Comment on Boon Lay MRT & Bus Interchange by nicthegeek the night market at boon lay is fun to go to occasionally to pick up surprise buys. and I like the everyone-walking-backwards in your video!!! Comment on Can one comment too often? by Paul C I think bloggers love getting comments provided that they are on topic and provide a sincere perspective on the issue. In that respect one cannot comment too much. This is coming from someone new to your blog. I have just added you to my Google Reader. I welcome a comment or two on my blog some day. Comment on Can one comment too often? by Sue Waters I don’t think you have any trouble with excessive commenting John as I’m sure my comment count must be higher. Which would mean I’m the one that needs help. To me commenting is the more important part of the conversation provided the comments are written for the right reasons i.e. adding to the conversation, sharing your views or helping someone. Must admit to feeling grumpy at bloggers who excessively write blog posts as I wonder how much time they spend visiting other people’s blogs. My priorities have always been reading > commenting and writing blog posts is my lowest priority. Do you track your comments? Comment on Can one comment too often? by Sarah Stewart I agree you can’t comment enough, unless you write really silly things. If anything, I don’t get out and about and comment enough. But I hadn’t thought about spam filters, so thanks for alerting me. Comment on Why Foreign Language Education Matters by John Larkin Pat, there are some excellent podcasts tucked away in iTunes. They tend to be overlooked if you do not specifically go looking for them. Comment on Can one comment too often? by John Larkin Hi Gilbert and Pat, thanks for the replies. My comments have also opened up connections with others. I was wondering whether it was my browser, the proxy cache at the university or the spam filter that was to blame. Yesterday I ended up emailing two blog authors about their posts and mentioned the non appearance of the comments. Each replied and my comments had been caught by the spam filter. Makes me smile to think about that. I will keep an eye on it. Comment on Can one comment too often? by Gilbert To answer your final question you first have to ask yourself why you comment. Do you comment to help other or help yourself? I do not think the ‘blog form’ is as successful a tool for dialogue as a forum or wiki. That said it is often the post that provokes my thinking and the process of commenting that develops my ideas about education further. My comments are composed to add value to the blogger, reader or other commentators, but the truth is they help me as much or more than others. On the issue of just not being posted; I have had that happen as well – I just took it that the blogger didn’t like what I said. If it is an option I will tick to get email/RSS if post is updated or I star the post in my reader and just follow them for a couple of days till comments stop. I like your comments on Clays blog and your post here – I have not detected any significant change of tone in your writing. You are always articulate and genuine.