Author: Chris

Teacher. Blogger. Podcaster. Asks way too many questions.
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Edublog Awards Nominations 2012

It’s that time of year again. Time to submit nominations for the 2012 Edublog Awards.

There are those who criticise the idea of giving out awards for educational blogs as being a bit silly, or a bit unnecessary, or a bit selfserving, or a bit self-indulgent. They complain that the voting process is flawed, or that it’s just a popularity contest, or that it promotes the wrong kinds of values.  Some complain that it’s just a chance for gratuitous self promotion, both for the bloggers themselves and for the companies that promote educational blogging.

I’m not one of those people. I think anything that supports, encourages and promotes the use of blogs in education is a good thing. Blogs are all about writing, sharing, thinking, pondering. Writing a blog forces you to clarify your thinking, state your position, defend your point of view. Blogging is a way to connect with others, debate ideas that matter to you, build a community of learners and be part of a bigger conversation.

Some say that blogs are not really needed any more now that we have so many other outlets. Yes, social networks are wonderful forums for sharing, but blogs are different. Facebook and Google+ have taken over many of the sharing functions that blogs originally had, and for simple sharing of links, videos and pictures, they probably do a better job. Twitter might be a quick, easy and more conversational way to share stuff, but it’s highly ephemeral and can lack depth because of the 140 character limit. A good blog can go deeper, have greater substance, more permanence, and better reflect the personality of the blogger.

Speaking personally, a large part of the connection, camaraderie and community that I experience every day from my network of friends and colleagues originated from my blog. So many of the opportunities I’ve had to meet, talk, share and even travel, have come from the connections I’ve made here. Don’t underestimate the value of blogging. But blogging takes work. It takes a degree of dedication and commitment to stick with it, to keep producing posts that push your thinking a little bit further each time. It takes a degree of bravery to commit ideas to print for the world to see, and to be willing to both stand by your beliefs, to be willing to have them challenged, and sometimes changed. Sure, blogging is about writing, but it’s about so much more than just writing. Blogging is personal growth in a public forum. And that takes courage.

So I don’t think the idea of having Edublog Awards is silly at all. If people are willing to put their ideas out there and engage in conversation with others, they deserve every bit of encouragement and recognition they can get.

So, it is with pleasure that I present my nominations for the 2012 Edublog Awards…

Best Individual Blog
Jabiz Raisdana (http://www.jabizraisdana.com/blog/)  Jabiz is a thinker… always challenging, always thoughtful, always pushing the boundaries. He shares openly and freely, he understands what it means to be a node in a network, and he is never afraid to explore his ideas in public. He writes with passion and insight and deserves to be read widely.

Best Teacher Blog
Rebekah Madrid (http://rebekahmadrid.wordpress.com/) Rebekah defines what it means for a teacher to have heart and soul. She cares so deeply about what she does and the students she teaches, and her blog puts it all out there for the world. She is a teacher who shares what goes on in her classroom, and in sharing her thinking with the world she strives to make it better all the time.

Best Teacher Blog
Zoe Page (http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/pagez/) Zoe is a kindergarten teacher who discovered the value of connectedness a couple of years ago and fully embraced it. She’s not a techie, just a passionate and committed educator who cares enormously about being the best teacher she can be. Her blog shares what she does with her kids and documents a personal journey of enormous growth.

Most Influential Blogpost
Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really. (http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/everything-you-know-about-curriculum-may-be-wrong-really/)  Easily the best blog post I’ve read this year. Maybe ever. It deserves all the attention it gets.

Best Library Blog
PLC Junior School Library (http://blogs.ludus.me/jlibrary/) Sandra McMullan is the librarian who publishes this blog. Although I was the person who introduced her blogging in the first place, I think she deserves recognition for the way she has embraced the idea and evolved her blog into a really vibrant online resource of links, book reviews, photos, and news.

Best educational use of audio/video/visual/podcast
The Google Educast (http://edreach.us/channel/googleeducast/) Ok, full disclaimer, I sometimes get to be part of this video podcast on the Edreach network, but since I’m not personally responsible for it, I’m nominating it anyway. The Google Educast is a weekly video podcast hosted by an amazing group of Google Certified Teachers that share news, tips and ideas for teaching with Google tools. It was one of the first podcasts to adopt the use of Google+ Hangouts on Air.

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Taking the Long View

I was recently given the privilege of giving a short keynote talk for the upcoming Flat Classroom Project cohort. The Flat Classroom Project is a wonderful professional learning program run by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay which focuses on getting teachers and students working together on global collaborative projects – connecting classrooms around the world to work together. Julie contacted me recently to ask if I would be interested in doing it and I jumped at the opportunity.

I was fortunate that I started doing some really full-on global collaborative projects with students back in the late 1990s, thanks to a program that was run by AT&T called Virtual Classroom. Although the format of the VC program was meant to be competitive – teams of three classrooms from around the world worked together to build a website on an agreed common theme – the essential principles of working together online were very much ingrained into my brain over the three years we worked on these projects. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the experience of doing these projects not only helped me to understand how to be a better teacher, but it’s what kept me involved in, and enthusiastic about, teaching. Without those few intense years of seeing the power of connecting, communicating and collaborating together across the world, it’s a fair bet that I would not still be teaching today. It was quite literally my “peek over the pail” to see exactly what education could really be all about, and it’s influenced almost everything I’ve done since. Those projects had a significant long term effect on me as an educator.

Those students I worked with back then are all in their late 20s now and I often wonder if they experienced the same sort of long term benefit from our global projects. So when Julie and Vicki asked if I would do this keynote I thought it might be a great opportunity to find these guys and actually ask them that question. Although I haven’t kept in regular contact with all of them over the years, I managed find several of them on Facebook to ask them whether they felt it made a difference to them. Just the fact that they were so willing to talk to me and reminisce about what we did 15 years ago, I think says a lot about the relationships and connections that these projects created.

And really, it’s in those relationships and connections, and being able to play a part in creating ripples of influence that reach far into the future that make teaching so different to so many other professions. It’s why those of us who love it, love it.

Anyway, the keynote video is on the Flat Classroom Project site, but (with Julie and Vicki’s permission) I thought I’d share it with you here too.

Special thanks go to Daniel, Richard, Peter, Chris and Laurie. You guys were awesome back in school, and you’re just as awesome now. Thanks for helping me learn what it means to learn.

I also want to say how grateful I am for my co-teacher partners in crime from those days – Janette Wilmott, Janet Barnstable, Mariko Yana, Hajime Yanase.

If you’ve never tried working globally, do yourself a favour and give it a go. Get involved in Flat Classroom Project, or even checkout the Global Virtual Classroom (what the original Virtual Classroom Project morphed into)  If you just look around, there are so many opportunities for collaborating online together… just find one and dive in. You won’t be sorry you did. Just ask my students.

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A Labour of eLove

It’s always good to celebrate creative successes. This is one of those times.

eloves me, eloves me notWhen I first met my partner Linda she had started working on the novel she always wanted to write. That was six years ago, and the novel has certainly had its stops and starts over that time. Writing is not always an easy thing to do, and there were times when life just got in the way and it became difficult for her to keep moving that cursor to the right. However, I’m pleased to say that over the last few months she’s really pushed herself to finish writing the manuscript, and over the last few weeks it’s been through seemingly endless revisions and edits, fine tuning of words and sentences, and onto the final processes of typesetting and preparation for publication.

I’m proud to say that Linda’s first novel is now finished, published and available.

The novel, eloves me, eloves me not, is a contemporary love story in which 39 year old Kayte Wexford realises that she still hasn’t met her Mr Right and so decides to give Internet dating a try. As the story unfolds she experiences some hilarious, fascinating and occasionally scary insights into the pros and cons of finding love online. It’s a clever, wonderfully well written story, with interesting plot lines and an ending you probably won’t see coming. It’s got some really funny scenes in it, some others that get quite hot and steamy, and it cleverly weaves in a lot of useful lessons about finding love and staying safe in the age of the Internet. If you’ve ever tried Internet dating there will probably be lots of scenes and characters you will recognise and identify with!

I’m particularly proud of the fact that Linda decided to self-publish the book. As an independent author and publisher, she gets to have total creative control over the end product. She got to write the story exactly how she wanted it to be written. She came up with the vision for the cover artwork and managed a design contest through 99designs.com to bring it to reality. She leveraged a group of friends from around the world to read the first draft and offer constructive feedback. She got it typeset exactly how she wanted it. She managed the publication process through CreateSpace.com (Amazon’s self publishing division) as well as creating ebooks through Kindle Direct Publishing and SmashWords.com.

Of course, self-publishing is a double edged sword. While you get to maintain full creative control over the final product, you’re also responsible for creating awareness and demand for it. Right now, she’s working hard to spread the word that a) the book exists, and b) people should read it!

Needless to say, I’m incredibly proud of what she’s done, and would like to support her as much as possible. So, if you know someone who would enjoy reading an intelligent, funny and contemporary love story, please tell them about eloves me, eloves me not. It’s available through Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions, and on SmashWords in just about every other format, including epub and mobi. (It’s coming soon to the Apple iBooks Store, Barnes and Noble and the Nook Store, but SmashWords can provide all those formats right now). If you know someone who would like the paperback version, may I suggest they get it through her CreateSpace store… it’s exactly the same price and version of the book as Amazon, but CreateSpace offers the best royalty payments for independent authors.

You can find out more at www.elovesmeelovesmenot.com