With the end of another school year and the flurry of reports, exams and other (unnecessary) minutiae of school life bearing down fast, I thought I’d better get in fast and nominate a few fellow bloggers for the 2008 Edublogs Awards.
Here are my ‘picks of the year’.
Best individual blog – Darcy Moore’s ‘Darcy’s Blog’ is at times wonderfully eclectic work of a school administrator with vision and passion that makes him jump the 40ft chasm not in two 20ft steps (like many others in his position) but with one leap and lots of room to spare. I have often said to Darcy “your staff are lucky to have you”.
Best new blog – Rob Abbey’s ‘Journeys on the Road’ (recently changed to ‘Life and Learning’, the link here is live). And I only started to read this a couple of weeks ago! This is a thinker’s blog that starts to go beyond the obvious and the often superficial hype. It is a thoughtful mesh of critical thinking and experience I would recommend to anyone with a bend for educational philosophy.
Most influential blog post -Chris Betcher’s ‘The Truth is Out There’ The stirrer from Sydney. This post generated much excellent discussion among my colleagues and my senior students and I am grateful to Chris for elaborating many of my own views.
Best Ed-Tech support – Julian Ridden’s ‘Moodleman Blog’ The Moodle wizard I have not yet met in person yet but I feel we have known each other for years through some wonderful collaboration. While Moodle is in his bloodstream, there is much more to Julian’s writing than just that. Thank you for all the tips and eye-openers.
Best teacher blog – Tony Searl’s ‘Sliced bread’ Now here is another bloke I could have a beer with tomorrow and it would be like we have known each other for years. His reply to one of my own posts (My f*%$#ing goosebump story) is a classic to treasure. Cheers!
(Hmmm, just noticed – all my nominees are male, please don’t read into this much 🙂 )
The special mention list is long…
Sue Waters, the wonderful, choc-loving and ever helpful Twitter fiend
Bryn Jones, the tireless (and priceless) local “wise guy” from Fremantle
Kathry Greenhill, a fellow Murdoch University alumni and Emerging Tech guru
Mary Cooch, the thoughtful Moodle hot potato from the UK
Rhys Moult, the Adelaide ‘jack of all trades’, social networker par excellence and the best practical joker in this group 🙂
Mark Callagher, the right-on Kiwi targeting secondary schools
Jenny Millea, a dynamo of thought and action
… and more (this is a bit unfair to a stack of other people but I am sure they’ll live 🙂 ) !
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and efforts throughout the year.
To a newbie to the world of blogging like me, this has been truly a memorable (first) year and in no small part thanks to your writing, comments, reactions and arguments.
Best wishes to all.
Tomaz
