Edublogs Awards – Day 3

 

Here’s Day 3 of my nominees for this year’s Edublogs Awards.  This morning takes me to some of the places that I head for resources and inspiration to continue to do whatever I need to do.  As with my previous posts, these nominees form major inspiration for what I do online. 

 

Best resource sharing blog
Larry Ferlazzo calls everything “The Best of…” and his blog and he devotes considerable time, effort, and space to identifying resources for virtually everything that you might be interested about in education.  It’s a great place to go when you have something specific in mind.  He comments and annotates the resources that he identifies which is always handy to have before you spend the time wandering around an internet resource. 

 

Best class blog
If I know what’s good for me, I’ve got to recognize the efforts that go into the efforts at Lawfield Elementary School in Hamilton and friend @zbpipe.  It’s hard to stay up with Zoe because she’s doing everything that she can with her students.  Whether it’s skyping with an author, working on her SMART Board, having an open-world test for her students, podcasting, or promoting each of her student blogs, this is one very active and connected classroom.  She documents her experiences online through Twitter and her blog is a launch pad to all of the opportunities made available to her students.  And, she uses the same theme as Larry Ferlazzo on Edublogs so you can’t go too far wrong.

 

Best elearning / corporate education blog
It was tough to determine where to place this blog and so I’d like to nominate Angela Maiers in this category.  When I created my Alltop account, her RSS feed was the very first that I added and I haven’t looked back.  I had the opportunity to meet this wonderful person at the NECC Conference in Washington and was so impressed because the first thing that she did was listen to get the perspective of the conversation and then jumped in with her well-founded opinions.  Her online resource comes across in the same manner.  It’s not overwhelming, but you get a strong sense that she’s the master of gentle encouragement and her mission statement “Putting Learners and Learning First” really says it all.

 

Lifetime achievement
It’s interesting that an awards competition that is 6 years old has a lifetime achievement award.  What really is a lifetime in the blogging world?  You would normally think of someone in a walker shuffling down the aisle to put up an award for this!  However, in my mind, there is one person that has made such a significant impact on the way that we think about using the connected world that it makes sense to nominate him.  I listened to Will Richardson at an NECC Conference and brought him into Ontario for his first speaking engagement at the Western RCAC Symposium a couple of years ago.  He stuck around for the second day and introduced consultants to the concept of blogs, wikis, and podcasts.  This was the inspiration that was necessary to set off a whole province on a new perspective of what it means to be connected and what it means for students.  Since that initial appearance, Will has been back many times, talking to Teacher-Librarians, Ontario Teacher Federation groups, school districts, and is now helping to guide the Ontario cohort of the Powerful Learning Practice.  He’s not ready for the walker but continues to exert a strong influence in this sphere.

I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t have access to the excellent resource that I’ve identified throughout this ordeal.   Whether any of the resources that I’ve identified over the past days “wins” or not, I’m just happy that I had the opportunity to identify them to those of you who drop by to take a look at my posts.  Voting concludes on December 16.  I hope that you’ll take the time to recognize those who have been identified here and on other blogs.