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The features in Google Docs can be used to facilitate a digital writer's workshop based on peer editing, and they are particularly useful when combined with cooperative grouping strategies to fine-tune students' editing skills. While students are writing their drafts, teachers can take advantage of opportunities to lead small instructional groups to help them focus on specific cooperative grouping job-related skills, then students can share their drafts with other group members who use comments to suggest revisions based on their job. The immediate feedback provided by peers will likely encourage writers to check comments and revise at home and stay on task during classroom work time. The revision history will keep student comments and revisions honest and focused on the task.

Easy extension to add to Chrome to hide YouTube comments.  Would be good for parents to install on their home computers.

YouTube can be a good place to find educational videos to support your lessons. We've all had students who struggle to hold their comments until the video has stopped. One strategy that many teachers have used in those cases is to tell students to "write it down." The web makes it possible to take that strategy a step further and have students not only "write it down" but also enable teachers to instantly respond to students' comments while watching a video. Here are three tools that enable users to watch videos online and discuss them with others at the same time.

Discovery News' "Discovernator" - generates a series of interesting facts.  Just reload the page to see what crazy fact comes up next.  This would be great for generating discussions in science and social studies.  Mind the comments below the generator - as with all sites that allow commenting, there is little control over what people contribute.

Great post by Jabiz Raisdana (integrating a post from Clint Hamada) with guidance for students beginning to comment on blogs.

The Art & Aspirations of a commenter

Great comment starters for students learning to blog

A blogpost from Jabiz Raisdana about whether or not students should unplug or disconnect from tech use. Very interesting perspectives, and a huge lot of comments, which all bring up interesting points

a request for "must read" blogs on children's and young adult literature blogs

As an instructor of undergraduate and graduate students at University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, I created a syllabus for the benefit of other college/university level instructors. I created a copy of the original syllabus for modification to use with high school students (probably juniors or seniors). I will rely on actual high school teachers to help me modify this source document. Please feel free to use, modify, and share this syllabus in your own way. Reorder the modules, add or subtract required or recommended texts and learning activities. Use your own assessment methods. If you wish to help improve this seed document, contact howard@rheingold.com and I will add you as a commenter and/or editor. 

allows you to easily create video presentations based on documents on your computer -- and then share them. Their tagline is "presentations with emotion".... Could be good for kids commenting on their work.

BlogBooker produces a high-quality PDF Blog Book from all your blog's entries and comments. Archives can be generated from any blog running on WordPress, LiveJournal (and derivatives) or Blogger. May be useful for student / classroom blogs as a snapshot at the end of the year? 

QuadBlogging is a leg up to an audience for your class/school blog. Over the last 12 months 70,000 pupils have been involved in QuadBlogging from 2000 classes in over 35 countries. The concept is simple, either watch the short video to the right or keep reading… A Blog needs an audience to keep it alive for your learners. Too often blogs wither away leaving the learners frustrated and bored. Quadblogging gives your blog a truly authentic and global audience that will visit your blog, leave comments and return on a cycle. Here's how it works:

On this site, you can see the ways fellow teachers are solving problems, leave a comment, recommend an idea, share inventive things you've done, and take on meaningful professional learning challenges.  We want to visualize and applaud how teachers can help each other develop as Learners, Sharers, Collaborators, and Influencers.  Watch your credibility amongst your peers grow while helping to build this shared professional resource.

Wow! Movenote lets you add video comments to anything in Google Drive. You can then embed the video together with the item in a Google site (or elsewhere) Great for making thinking visible.

A variety of apps for taking digital notes.  Check the comments too - some good ideas there.

"The Wikimedia Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons."

" Welcome to StoryWeb! - Digital Stories from the Elementary Classroom This site is dedicated to highlighting digital stories as told by elementary students around the globe. Please feel free to leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts. This site is maintained by Mike McKillip, international educator currently working at the International School of Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania."