Thing 4

    Commenting helps reate a sense of community because you are collaborating in a positive way and sharing useful information and ideas.  It creates a sense of community through forming friendships, asking for help and ideas when you need them.  It helps everyone get to know one another and form partnerships where we can exchange information that we learn in class or through experience teaching in the classroom.  One point that I found important while reading about commenting is if you disagree to bring up the positive point that you agree with and compliment and then explain why you disagree with them.  I thought this was important because no one likes someone that is a overly critic about what they post.  Plus, the positive comments help show that you pay attention to the good along with the bad.  The second point that I though was important is that you invite comments.  If you invite comments, you will most likely get more comments and feel as though you are apart of the blogging community.  I think it is important because in order to have a successful blog you have to be able to communicate effectively with other people and learn and share information. 
       I choose to read and comment on John McFarland's Thing 6 blog because the name caught my eye and I am trying to learn about more of the tools that are available online.  I chose to make a positive comment because I agreed with his blog about how Photobucket used and organizing the pictures in the correct way can help students study or understand the topics in class.  I also made a point that you would have to organize the pictures in the correct way in order for the pictures to help the students understand the lesson and its content.  I made this point because if you make a powerpoint with pictures to help the student understand meiosis and its not in the correct chronilogical order they will become confused and the powerpoint will not be useful.  
       The second blog I decided to read and comment on was Paige Walker's 7 1/2 habits because the third habit use to be a challenge for me as well.  I told her to try and look at the obstacles as biology problems since we are both biology problems and that is what helped me.  I also, told her that I wanted a new start and in order to start with any new slate when you start a new school year you have to view obstacles as challenges and maximize the learning experience. 
      The third blog I decided to read and comment on was Anne Stritzel because the name caught my eye.  her thing number seven was interesting.  I told her that I could relate to losing a pet and apologized for her loss.I also  told her that I had the same problem, so I signed up for an account and I could use the pictures, but it depended on which picture you wanted to use.  Her blog was very informative and you could see that she is a caring person through her story.
      The fourth blog I decided to read and comment on was Tiffany Fruth's because I am interested in what other people think about flickrs mashups and how they could be used in the classroom and our own personal lives.  I agreed with her that we have to worry about crimson and inapropriate pictures being posted online because some children find them. I also told her that the flickr tools could be very useful in the classroom depending on how you use them in the classroom.
    The fifith blog I decided to read and comment on was Tammy Waters on the sixth thing.  She did a wonderful summary about the tool she chose to write about.  I read and commented on this blog because I thought it would be useful to learn about different tools that can help us out in our classrooms.  I told her I agreed that it would be beneficial in the classroom because no matter what subject you are there is vocabulary that your students need to learn.  Plus, it will help with lesson plans and those are very important.   
       For one of the two blogs I had to comment and read on that is not from the education was Genome Biology because they put out interesting articles and they reached their two year anniversary.  I congratulated them and told them to keep up the good work.  They are interesting because the articles are in the biiology field which I find fascinating. Plus, other people that communicate on their page keep up with the news on whats going on in biology.  The second blog I decided to comment and read on was Leslie Samuel because he is a high school biology teacher that keeps his own website up to date.  He puts videos, games, powerpoints, worsheets and quizzes he uses online to share and give other teacher ideas.  He also, puts it online to help his students understand the material and engage them in the material.  I asked him how he keeps his students interested because by high school most students lose interest in their science classes.