Blogs

Your tasks:

1. Read a blog post

2. Leave a comment on it.

3. Share about the blog post you read in a comment on this post.

Welcome to our MTBoS Orientation! Below you’ll find an activity to complete, and detailed instructions on how to do it.

In addition to instructions, we’ll also weave in further ways to pursue the activity. Two things we’re aiming for are helping you to connect to quality resources that you’ll find helpful in your classroom, and helping you to connect with other teachers online that you ”click” with. You’ll find ways to push out in both these directions. Everyone’s different—how much prior experience they have online, what their classroom looks like, the areas they hope to grow in, and their personal tastes. We hope you’ll find experiences online that speak to you, and that we can help.

All right, reading a blog post. Let’s look at a few places online where you can find a blog post to read.

1. How to Find a Blog Post to Read:

a) On the MathTwitterBlogosphere Weebly site, you’ll find some lists of teachers who blog about different age groups and courses, as well as by special interests. They’re a great place to find some blogs to begin reading. You can also check out the site’s page of A Few Good Blog Posts.

b) Maybe there’s a specific topic you’d like to read about, like quadratics or division or similar triangles. Then you can head over to the MTBoS Search Engine and type that term in. Scroll through the results, pick a post and read it. Not sure what to search for? Random Post button!

c) Maybe you’d like to read a post by someone with a particular profile—like someone who’s a math coach, or who’s interested in flipped classrooms, or who lives in your state/region/province. Then head over to new MTBoS Directory and poke around for someone. Take a look at their blog and read a post. And maybe while you’re at the directory, you’ll add yourself to it!

d) For each of the past couple of years, Geoff Krall has compiled and curated a Math Blogging Retrospectus. Community members submit some of their favorite posts of the year—it’s a great place to find some great posts to read! If you find a post you like, definitely go and check out the author’s blog.

e) If you have some spare time, get lost down the rabbit hole of blog rolls. Many bloggers keep a list of the blogs they enjoy reading in a list on the side of their blog. One of the best ways of finding new blog posts and bloggers is to springboard from blogrolls or other mentions of blogs by bloggers whose work you enjoy.

f) Maybe you already have a blog that you enjoy reading, but there are old posts that you’ve never gotten around to reading. You could take this as a chance to do a deep dive into their archive. Or if you’re on Twitter, maybe there’s someone there whose tweets you enjoy, but you’ve never read their blog. Here’s your chance to see what they can do with more than 140 characters!

2. How to Leave a Comment on a Post:

When you visit a blog, it’s usually a whole page of individual blog posts. In order to comment, you’ll need to be on the page of a specific post, which you can get to by clicking on the title of that blog post. When you scroll down to the bottom of a post, there will be a prompt that says something like “leave a comment” or “leave a reply.” It will ask you for some information. It’s your call if you want to use your real name or come up with a fun pseudonym. Listing your website is optional, don’t feel bad about skipping it. And don’t worry, your email address will not be published with your comment.

When you comment on a blog post, you can write a question to the author, share a related experience or a resource you like, or just express your appreciation to the author.

Maybe the author or another commenter will respond to your comment. You can always return to the blog post at a later time in order to check. If you’d like, you can receive a notification when additional comments on a post are added. There should be a checkbox underneath the comment box giving you the option to “check here for notification of follow up comments.” It’s definitely worth giving it a try!

Making a comment can sometimes hit a snag:

• You might not see your comment show up on a post right away. Don’t worry: often bloggers moderate the comments on their blog, which means they approve comments before they show up on posts.
• It can sometimes be tricky to “log in” in order to post a comment. Depending on the platform the blog author uses, you might need to have an account of some kind in order to comment.
• If you’re not careful, you might hit “back” on your browser, and your comment might get deleted. As a precaution, sometimes you might choose to compose a comment that’s on the long side in another document, and then cut and paste it to the comment box.

If you run into any trouble leaving comments somewhere, feel free to get in touch with us. Email is one way: exploremtbos@gmail.com

3. How to Leave a Comment Here:

Don’t just comment on the blog you read! Once you’ve read a post, come back here to this post and comment on it as well, down below. (The same process applies.) With your comment, you’ll be sharing what you find with your fellow MTBoS explorers. In the comment, include the link to the blog—just copy and paste it—and let us know what you liked about it. Have a look around to see if any of the blog posts shared by the other commenters are compelling to you, and maybe go check some out. That’s another great way to find new blogs—recommendations from fellow travelers. You might even go for extra credit and read and respond to several blog posts!

Have a great time finding some blog posts that inspire and engage you. When you’re ready, click on to task two to get started on Twitter!