You may think it a little indulgent, but every year the Edublog Awards are held to recognise those educators who have somehow managed to use blogs in a way that might be worthy of some acknowledgment. Whilst there will always be those who criticise awards programs as being too elitist, too self-promotional, too biased or too just plain wanky, I think it’s great that there is this opportunity for those who are using blogging for educational purposes to get some sort of recognition for it, and also to uncover a whole lot of new blogs and bloggers that may not have been in your feeds. Thankfully, the nomination and voting procedures got a complete overhaul this year that will hopefully see them be a lot fairer and less open to manipulation than in past years.
At the risk of sounding self-promotional and wanky, I just wanted to say how surprised I am to have not one, but two nominations this year in the Most Influential Blogpost category. To the folks that proposed the two nominations, thanks, I really appreciate it.
The first post, The New Digital Divide, was about change and how the divide between those who “get” technology and those who don’t seems to be getting bigger. It focused on the development of personal learning networks and online communities as ways for education leaders to connect and stay ahead of the curve…
A new Digital Divide is emerging as the connected educators find each other. A few years ago, these bleeding edge edutechies were the exception. They were isolated in their schools. They did great things with kids but worked mostly in a vacuum because they were so rare that there was usually no one in the school to share their craziness with. But the rise of networked intelligence has changed that. These people are finding each other and forming alliances. They are conversing and sharing with each other. Their networks are amplifying their voices, and allowing them to connect in ways that their less connected colleagues don’t really understand, and through this connected amplification, they are starting to have a real voice.
The second post, The Truth Is Out There, started off talking about the use of mobile phones for learning at my own school, and then spread into a wider discussion of where the boundaries lie with regard to the use of portable devices and how schools define curriculum…
It doesn’t matter what field of endeavour you think about, from archeologists to zoologists the real measure is not how many marks they got in a test of rote memory, but in how well they are able to use the resources at their disposal to solve the problems in front of them. If that means they need to Google for an answer, call someone for a second opinion, or grab the manual to look something up, then that ought to be ok. It’s about getting the problem solved and if they need to use their resourcefulness or contacts or tools to solve the problem then so be it.
It’s quite an honour to think that someone else thought these posts were somehow “influential”. I am unashamedly proud of my blog and it has certainly helped me shape my own thinking, but the idea that it might also somehow help others shape their thinking is always nice to hear… I guess that’s one of the definitions of “influence”?
If you wanted to cast a vote my way, I wouldn’t knock it back. 🙂
There are, of course, many, many other worthwhile nominations in this years Edublog Awards. Take the time to have a browse through them, vote for your favourites. and I’m sure you’ll uncover plenty of interesting ideas among them.
Tags: edublogs, awards, mostinfluentialblogpost
