Keeping track of student comments on blogs

[Anne Mirtschin]

My students are bloggers. I would like to try and track comments that they make as they actively seek out fellow bloggers around the world. This is one element that I have no real control over and so was really interested in Clarence Fisher's idea of using a google spreadsheet for recording student comments on an individual basis.
Does anyone else have any ideas on how students could record the comments they make on other's blogs

[Anne Mirtschin]

Okay, as I teach information technology to students from grades 2 to 12 and as my grade4 (and higher) students have their own individual blogs, they actively make comments on student blogs around the world. I do not see what the comments are or who they are made to, but would like to monitor them somehow. If student comments could be tracked, or they keep a copy of them (that does not involve too much work), then I could randomly peruse the comments to make sure they are appropriate and follow basic digital citizenship rules. As I teach over 150 students, I cannot ask them to wait for me to check comments before they send.
I like them making comments as this is where the real connections and conversations start, but I would just like to be able to monitor them at times.

[Alan Levine]

One approach is the Firefox plugin Co-comment that is able to track user comments as they leave them elsewhere; it does require installation and creation of a co-comment account:


http://www.cocomment.com/

A much more lo tech way would be to create a unique "code" that you ask your students to append or include in each comment (like say, asking each student to add #anndgrade4) so that you could search for comments in google, possible use the google blog search to locate (and subscribe to an RSS feed). It would only work if the students remember to use it each time.

There was someone a long while ago who had no blog, but did his writing in the comment space of other blogs- so his own "blog" was a google search:
http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/blog/archives/000215.html

[Anne Mirtschin]

Thanks for the reply, Alan. I like the idea of tagging and think I might have a go at that one. I tried cocomment a few months ago for a competition but found it crashed my computer all the time in IE. Have you had any experience with that? I got so cross, I just gave up on it.

[Alan Levine]

I never use IE ;-)

[Anne Mirtschin]

Sorry John but IE is abbreviations for Internet Explorer.

[Rick]

if you are not using IE then what you have been using till now for searching over internet and working any type of work?
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[Rick]

Firefox is superbbbbbbbbbbbbbb I have been using it since a year.... yes it's has bit errors but it's more cool comparatively with IE.

Br,
Rick Mark,
fond of writing in nay type of topics.
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