This Week in Ontario Edublogs

It’s the time of year when teachers just hate walking into Walmart or Zellers or Staples or any of the other places with their “Back to School” sales.  Summer is only half over!

Yet, some Ontario Edubloggers continue to keep learning and sharing via their excellent blogs.  Here’s some of what I enjoyed reading this week.

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As I posted yesterday, Paul Cornies has revived the Quoteflections blog.  In a world where so many blogs can look the same, this one really stands out.  Inspiring quotations, thoughtful and yet quick to read can serve as morning inspiration to anyone who cares to drop by.  Paul’s latest entry is titled “Listen Generously”.  In a world where people are quick to shoot from the hip, a reminder that it’s always good to listen is great advice.

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“Big Ideas” is a newly added blog to the collection of Ontario Edubloggers.  Deborah McCallum seems to be a pretty regular blogger sharing some thoughts, research, and inspiration to ponder.

Her latest entry talked about how to make your school and libraries inviting for students and, indeed, to any person entering the school.  I like the list of things that she’s offered.

One extra thought that comes to mind immediately is the humble blog.  She does make reference to websites, Facebook, newsletters, etc. as communication vehicles.  In addition to all of this, I think that it’s really important that the principal steps to the keyboard and blogs her/himself.  Too often, communication is expected solely of classroom teachers.  However, if we believe that the principal is the principal teacher of the school, there thoughts and philosophies should be front and centre.  More than just when the next hotdog day will be, it’s important that the entire community knows why certain strategic educational decisions are made.

When you blog, you can really open your sole and let every reader know exactly who and what you are.  Isn’t that the way to make this the most welcoming?

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Alanna King and I have crossed paths quite a bit over the last few years.  She blogs at threadbarebeauty and is already thinking of the Media Arts class that she’ll have for the fall.  Recently, she dropped by the Visual.ly website to take a look at the infographics that are available for users.

She created and shared the Facebook Monster that she is.  In addition to the engaging graphics, it does pull some interesting statistics about the user based upon their activities and their participation on the social networking service.

This would absolutely be very relevant for secondary school students who likely all have their own accounts.  I could see a terrific activity creating individual infographics and then analysing each others.  Then, I would toss in the infographic that I shared earlier from Mashable reporting that there are 83 Million Fake Facebook accounts.  It reinforces the always solid advice of “choosing your friends wisely”.

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Sheila Stewart was doing a little out loud questioning about the “Value of Connecting”.

There are days when I go along and erroneously make the assumption that everyone “gets it”.  Her post served to remind me that nothing could be further from the truth.  There are so many that are not connected in the same way as we, gentle blog reader.  So, how do you convince others that this is a good thing.

It’s the question that I’m sure that all of us have had to address.  You’re at the computer and some one asks “What are you doing?”  You reply “I’m updating my Twitter account”.  The response “Oh, sharing your breakfast again?”  There is just so much negative that could be focused on – how do you convince the new person of the value?  It’s not a question that easily answered.  If you do, I would sure like to know!

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Great content.  Thanks to those who continue to share via their blogs.  You can read these and all the Ontario Edublogger’s efforts by accessing the LiveBinder keeping track.

And, if you’re an Ontario Edublogger and not on the list, please complete the form and you soon will be.