C4T! #2

Around the Corner 

For this week’s comment for teachers I was assigned the blog Around the Corner  by Miguel Guhlin. The first post I commented on was called Opening Gambit - Creating, not Criticizing, Together . In this post Guhlin writes about when he presented a web- based system. He mentions at first he “felt like a fiesta piñata that everyone would get a whack at.” During the “whacking”, Guhlin found a solution that would almost instantly turn the situation around. He asked the people, whom he was presenting the design to, to turn to the person beside them and create together a design of what they would like to see. After asking the question and reviewing the designs it gave Guhlin and his team, which created the web-based design, a chance to really target what the people wanted to see.

I commented how this was a great way to use criticism in a constructive way. I liked the way Guhlin turned a “whacking session” into something that he and his team of web-based designers could flourish from. With Guhlin asking the people to design what they would like to see resulted in a no fail web-based design that was sure to get approved. I realized after reading this post it could have been easy for Guhlin to get discouraged and give up creating the web-based design for iHub but, Guhlin didn't. Guhlin simply thought of a way to best get results and an idea of what the people wanted to see.

The second post I read on Around the Corner was entitled Reflecting on You – Gauges for Your Blog or Website. In this post Guhlin simply explores gauges available to you. He mentions ClustrMaps, Stat Counter, Blogger Stats, and Feedjit. Guhlin goes on to describe each gauge and what they do. He also mentions his favorite things about each of them.

I thought that this was a good and informative post. I commented on how I had a ClustrMap on my blog but, before now I had no idea what the others were. I plan to soon get a Feedjit. A Feedjit is a tool that allows you to review which posts are most read for the day. Or as Guhlin puts it “to see what blog entries are popular and trending on a given day”. I believe that the above tools are wonderful with them you can develop more posts that your readers would like to see and you can review where your blog is being read.