Sticky Note Commnet Fairy

This post is part of the Slice of Life March Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers.
Check it out and join us.

We now have a sticky note comment fairy in our class. 

My students are participating in the Classroom Slice of Life and in the weeks prior to March we spent time setting up our blogs. In the process one student came to discover that they couldn't comment on other people's blogs. It is weird. We can't figure it out. All student accounts are configured the same way. The settings were double checked. We even made her a second account and it has challenges as well. I've had our tech guy in and we have brainstormed together, narrowing down the variables, trying to isolate the difficulty, all without discovering a solution. The whole thing is VERY bizarre. 

The requirements for my students include both posting and commenting. She is still able to publish blog posts so she can meet that requirement. Other people can comment on her posts, so she is getting comment love. Some kids would be fine with not being able to comment, but she wants to be able to share the comment love, both with her classmates and around the world. 

Her attitude has been fantastic. Second account - no problem. Remembering two logins and two passwords and which to use when - no problem. Trying any variation we ask of her - sure! She hasn't even complained about not being able to comment. When we work on commenting as a class she might remind me, "Mrs. Lonheim, I still can't comment." It is more of a way of making sure I know she isn't shirking her responsibility than a complaint or a pester. She has even spent time at home researching her situation in an attempt to find a solution.

As the first of March arrived I knew I was going to have to come up with a solution so she could meet the comment requirement. The rest of the class adds their comment URLs to a Google Spreadsheet I have shared with them. (Not all of their comments are recorded here, just ten a week.) I had asked her to use her literacy notebook to simply make a list of the comments she would have written, if she could. And then an idea struck.

"I have an idea. It won't allow you to comment on people outside of our classroom, but you would be able to share comments with your classmates."

She was game, so I continued.

"Why don't you use sticky notes to write your comments and then deliver the notes yourself?"

Her smile grew quickly across her face.

So, we have a sticky note comment fairy in our classroom. The situation was explained to the class and now yellow squares and smiles are spread around the room as well as digital thoughts around the world when it is time for us to comment.