Week 5: Thanks For The Blogs

So many blogs so little time! For this weeks assignment in Learning Through Technology at Southern New Hampshire University we reviewed three education blogs and reported on those blogs. So, here I go.

Blog #1 Cool Cat Teacher Blog
The author of this blog is Vicki Davis. She is a full time teacher, mother, presenter, and award winning author of wikis, blogs and co-author of Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds.  Vicki's blog is written to inform, encourage and inspire people in the field of education. She has approximately 1420 followers that range from teachers, media specialist, parents and administrators. The last post titled "Advice to presenters and teachers: All You Have is Enough" garnered 19 comments and 80 reactions which I think is very cool.

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog is a place where educators can go as a forum of support and inspiration. Her last couple of posts have been motivating to me in a field of work that we may sometimes feel very isolated. I have added her blog to my Google Reader and would encourage others especially those new to the profession. I am very interested in following what Vicki has to say to teachers around the country and world.

Vicki's last post hit home with me when she wrote "ALL YOU HAVE is enough. You are enough. Rest your head and have a good day knowing you gave all you had." I find there are many days that I walk away wondering, was that enough. I have my Health students for 23 days out of a school year, was it enough, will they be safe and make good choices, was it enough!

By Stacey Bonino Created By BusyTeacher.org

Blog #2 Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Dr. Wesley Fryer has created a blog, called, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, to document his learning and collaboration with other educators. Dr. Fryer is a digital learning consultant, author, digital storyteller, educator, husband and dad. Through his blog he covers many areas in the digital education world such as web 2.0, digital storytelling, digital citizenship,  and the use of educational technologies to name a few.  His books include What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media and Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing. As of today Dr. Fryer has 15,698 followers on Twitter, WOW! The blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, captures an audience of educators and yes there are many.

This blog covers cutting edge technology information including topics such as, Newsweek is going all digital, and the best iOS apps for audio recording and sharing. I am not sure I would read this blog on a regular bases but I would add the blog to my Google Reader and check out what his thoughts are on the new, up and coming technology. I think the blog would be helpful for media specialists, technology instructors and technology integration specialist/administrators.

One of my favorite blogs, "30 in 60: 30 Tools for Tech-Savvy Teachers", was actually a blog of notes from his podcast on the topic. In this blog he covered Edmodo a management system you can use to organize your classroom, WebList virtual space where you have a lot of information for students to use and  Zimmer Twins digital storytelling just to name a few of the 60. I am always very interested in the tech tools out there to engage my students with the use of technology.

Blog #3 The Daily Riff

Image from Google

C.J. Westerberg is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Riff.  However, there are many contributors to the blog. C.J. Westerberg is also a parent, education writer, researcher, school board member and entrepreneur in education. This blog covers topics such as people, politics, business, learning, innovation, and technology. There are blogs for parents and about bullying. It is my belief the this blog is meant to reach people of all different audiences, educators and parents alike. While The Daily Riff has 1450 Twitter followers and 711 subscribers on Google Reader there were not many comments left on the blog postings I read.

I found this site be be fascinating because they cover such a wide range of topics that are informative to educators. The goal of the blog is to give the readers news and opinions in quick, digest-sized take-aways to use and share and I think they have hit their mark. I added this blog to my Google Reader subscriptions and believe others involved in education would find the blog interesting as all.

One blog I really enjoyed was 10 Questions for the First Day of School which explored the change in education from teacher driven to student guided. Edna Sackson, who is an educator in Australia and the writer of this blog, compared the way we used to think when opening up the school year with our classes to the way we should think today. Here are a couple of the examples she posed past and present;  past-explain your expectation, present-ask about their expectations, past-establish rules, present-create an essential agreement, past - tell them what they'll be learning, present - ensure they know that they own their learning.  Every quarter I start new classes and I believe this blog will be extremely helpful in my focus of how I open up a new classes.