My blogging has become a lot more personal this quarter. I enjoyed the opportunity to write about the topics of my choosing without feeling constrained by the need to write about a given weekly assignment or reading. This freedom allowed me to talk about issues I was working through. As I look back at my blog this quarter I see how much it reflects my own struggles and experiences. My blog became a cathartic way to express my feelings about this experience. Sometimes there were issues that I did not feel comfortable bringing up in class but felt safe to do so on my blog.
I am not sure that I became better at generating comments, and honestly I was not writing with that purpose in mind. There were certain blog posts though that seemed to spark more interest than others. An example of this is my post “There are many ways to be a great teacher.”
I did comment on my cohort members’ blog throughout the quarter but I did not do as well as I had hoped at commenting on blogs from people outside our cohort. I did though link to many blog posts and articles on twitter as a way to contribute to the learning of my classmates. I found twitter to be an excellent resource for this. I especially loved the posts by Edutopia and Huffington Post Education.
The Teacher-To-Be 
I definitely agree with your sentiment that is is a bit easier, a bit less risky (or at least it feels less risky) to connect with other bloggers via twitter than on their blog pages. There are some people online who will eviscerate a post (yours, mine, anyone’s) regardless of the validity of the content, just to make a political point or really just for some “fun”. This adds an element of risk to posting on a blog that does not surface often in twitter. I, too, am still sorting out what the right balance of challenge or commiseration I should have in my blog posts and on others’ blogs.
I’m looking at the conversations that you’ve generated in your posts this quarter and see people who had their own experiences validated — and who could then think more about those things with you and others. Those are such great examples of how telling one’s own stories about teaching opens other stories so that everyone can grow and learn. You are exactly where you should be. Thanks for pushing yourself. I’ll look forward to reading more in Winter.