My nominations

I am having to do a lot of thinking about who I am going to nominate for this year.  There are so many great student, class, teacher and new blogs out there but I have to get it down to just one in each section. So here we go:

Best new blog or best student blog

This student has only been blogging since February this year and she has established a great blogroll with many return commenters to her blog. She is extremely creative and this is seen in her many and varied posts. She took part in the recent September student blogging challenge and wrote 33 posts over the three month period. Most of these were her own choice rather than just those suggested by the blogging challenge. She is extremely quick at responding to comments left on her posts and she has many long conversations with her readers. Congratulations on being nominated by me – Amy of the creative mind!

Best new blog or best class blog or best group blog

I’m not sure which category to put this one in either.  A group of 6 students are organizing their blog ready for the new school year in 2013. This is actually a class blog but totally run by students. The teacher is there in the background but all posts and comments are being written by the students who are all administrators of this blog.  They are all grade 5 this year but will be the mentors for any classes at their school who wish to start a new blog next year. Congratulations on being nominated by me – FEASTS – acronym for their names!

Best teacher blog

This one was also very difficult to decide who to nominate but this teacher always writes extremely informative posts relating technology to how it can be used within the common core curriculum and in the classroom. She reflects upon her learning all the time and has many conversations with her large following of readers. Comments are quickly added to with her special way of writing. She is always there for both the school district she works in but also for her large PLN who follow her blog all the time. She is also a great tweeter and always has many links in her blog posts to allow her readers to follow up the topic by visiting other writers as well. Congratulations on being nominated by me – Tracy Watanabe!

Best Librarian blog

This teacher is an inspiration to her students. As well as teaching in the library about skills needed in this digital world, she has students creating book trailers, writing book reviews, connecting globally with other readers. She presents at conferences and always reflects on what is happening in her digital world. She has a strong PLN who thoroughly enjoy her postings. Congratulations on being nominated by me – Julie Hembree of the Bulldog Readers!

Best twitter hashtag

Again there are so many to choose from but as an educational blogger I couldn’t go past #comments4kids  Will Chamberlain developed this hashtag so teachers and other educationalists could visit great student posts to leave comments for the students. I use this hashtag often when I read a great post by a student who is in the student blogging challenge or on one of the blogs at the eSchool blogs I run. Congratulations on being nominated by me – #comments4kids

Best ed tech or resource sharing blog

I accidentally came across this blog late last year and have since had it in my Google reader. The author writes many posts about all topics relating to educational technology and mobile learning. I don’t  really know how he also has time to teach. Congratulations on being nominated by me – Med Kharbach from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Best Educational wiki

If you want lots of handouts for staff PD or student use relating to Bloom’s Taxonomy, web 2.0 tools, learning styles etc, then this is the wiki to go to. Run by a teacher in New Zealand, I am always recommending this great wiki to teachers – even for a fantastic read about the different topics in 21st century learning or for ideas in the classroom. Congratulations on being nominated by me – Andrew Churches at Edorigami.

Thanks to Edublogs for allowing us to nominate blogs, wikis, tweets etc. It doesn’t really matter who wins, it is the connections we make and the new blogs we find out about that allow us to further develop as educators – retired or otherwise!