The Year in Ontario Edublogs

As we wrap up and stick at fork in 2020, there are lots of places that are providing their highlights of the year. I’m going to be able to do that this year.

Because of COVID – how sad is that?

Earlier this year, I sat down and created a spreadsheet itemizing all of the blog posts that I had included in my Friday “This Week in Ontario Edublogs” post and also for the voicEd Radio show. I guess this is my signature post; I do it every Friday and feature some great content from Ontario Edubloggers. I’ve written a blog post with the title “This Week in Ontario Edublogs” or “The Week in Ontario Edublogs” 445 times. I do make mistakes.

I started blogging in 2007 and have been at it since then. I even have the book on it written by Will Richardson called “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.” So, don’t let anyone tell you that this is a new concept!

My worry, at the time, was there were lots of people all excited about the concepts and digital messages and were sharing stuff to their Personal Learning Network. That’s certainly a great concept and most definitely still worthwhile but everyone was all over American blog posts. There just had to be worthy Canadian content and even more specifically, Ontario content. I was now on a mission. As I would discover Ontario blogs, I started to accumulate them in one spot, this Livebinder.

I’ve actually collected lots of Ontario blogs. Like many things on the web, there comes a time when people move on but I decided to maintain the list just because the blog might return and the original content was just that good.

Certainly, I don’t have time to wade through all of these every week. At one point, I had put the posts into Google Reader which has since gone away. I now maintain a resource stored in The Old Reader so that I’m notified when the RSS spots a new post.

About four years ago, Stephen Hurley extended me an invitation to do a show on voicEd Radio. Unlike traditional podcasts, we would do this show live on Wednesday mornings with the show being recorded and available later as a podcast. We still do that! I write the show overview and share it with him in advance so that he can do some reading. When we have guest hosts like we do in the summer, they get added to the document as well so they know what we’re talking about!

A typical share looks like this one I did for a fun blog post from Terry Greene.

Just enough information to jog my memory but not enough that the talk becomes scripted.

The data from blog posts that are used either on the show or on my Friday blog posts gets entered into the spreadsheet. A typical weekly entry would look like this:

Just check out the titles of those blog posts. Ontario Edubloggers are absolutely the best. There’s always inspiration there and the content never fails to get me thinking. And, after all, that’s one of the reasons why you blog in the first place.

The first five entries would be used for the radio show and the last two which I call “Bonus” in my notes are exclusive to this blog. You’ll see that each author name is actually a link which opens a new sheet in the spreadsheet devoted to that person. Then, there’s the blog post title, the number of times I’d used that particular blog author last year and then a link to the actual TWIOE post. (I had a lot of time at the keyboard during being locked down…)

From my perspective, all this data collection is interesting and lets me make sure that I’m bringing in new voices all the time. It also let my create another new sheet where I could do some statistics and come up with my personal “Top 10 of 2020” list. It’s purely quantitative.

So, here’s my Top 10 List For 2020.

1. With 15 hits, we have a tie,
   Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca – https://adunsiger.com
   Diana Maliszewski – @mzmollytl – https://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.ca
2. Used 13 times,
   Beth Lyons – @MrsLyonsLibrary – https://thelibrariansjourney.blogspot.com
3. At 12 hits and two blogs,
   Lisa Corbett – @LisaCorbett0261 – https://mrscorbettsclass.wordpress.com, https://alotalot.wordpress.com
4. A three-way tie at 11 hits,
   Deborah Weston – @DPAWestonPhD – http://heartandart.ca
   Tim King – @tk1ng with two blogs – https://temkblog.blogspot.ca, http://mechanicalsympathy.ca/wp/
   Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris – http://www.matthewrmorris.com
5. And, another three-way tie at 9 hits,
   Jennifer Casa-Todd – @jcasatodd – http://jcasatodd.com
   Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio – https://reflectingonrecreation.wordpress.com/
   Will Gourley – @WillGourley – http://heartandart.ca

For the record and grand total, 349 blog posts made their way into a Friday TWIOE blog post.

As posts are used on the radio show, I add them to my public voicEd Radio Blog Roll. I feel so honoured that I’ve actually had the opportunity to meet some of these people in person – typically at a professional learning event. Will and I even held a wall up at the back of an auditorium!

I’m so appreciative to all the Ontario Edubloggers that give me raison d’être on Thursdays so that the post can be written and appear on Fridays.

I’m happy to indicate that the voicEd show and the TWIOE post will continue into 2021. I’ve created a new draft document and it’s ready to go (2020 had 114 pages to it and takes forever to load, even with high speed internet).

Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that I’ve got all the Ontario Educational Blog posts corraled. If you’re a blogger and I don’t know about you and your blog, please complete the form you’ll find here. I’m looking for a bit of information like your Twitter handle and link to your blog post. I’d really like to be able to add you to the collection.

In the meantime, I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a prosperous and safe 2021. Look for the radio show and Friday blog post to pick up again next week.

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