The Tech Savvy Educator
This was my first experience reading the blog of an educator. At my first glance around the Web site, I was intrigued with the candid photographs. Reading over the range of topics, such as Building an Online Book Club and Time Related Satellite Images of Dubai, I found a topic that the blogger, Ben Rimes, and I share an interest in, video games as teaching tools. The post “What
video games have to teach us about learning and literacy – part 3” is a brief book review of James Paul Glee’s textbook with the same title. During my course work in instructional technology for my specialist degree, I came across the topic of gaming and the research was limited. Rimes shares his experience as a reader of the textbook, providing what he agreed on and what was interesting to him in the textbook content. I have put Glee's book on my must-read book list.
Free Technology for Teachers
This blog is authored by Richard Byrne and serves as a technology resource site. His post 21 Reasons to stop saying "21st Century Teacher" shows his writing is humorous and witty. Byrne’s messages reflect applications of technology for student learning. Many of his post are technology application how-to-steps that are explanatory and an entertaining read. His blog contributors/readers post messages that show their appreciation of his instructions and they provide additional technology application suggestions. The write/read component, referred to by Richardson (2010), is a key part of this blog. The site is loaded with links to other technology resource Web pages.
Teach Thought
Blogger Kay Bisaillon posted What happens when students are free to learn? She opens a virtual window into her face2face classroom. She shares her instructional methods and reflects on her pedagogy practices. Her writing, more personal, gave me the feeling I was getting to know her. I will return to Teach Thought to learn more.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
More similar to what I read at CNN.com and other e-newspapers, The Chronicle of Higher Education, is an online newspaper. It has a blog section with several bloggers that post on academia related topics. Prof Hacker is a pen name for the technology blog section. Prof Hacher not only posts original messages, many of the technology posts are completely written by other authors that the blog has selected to post. A recent example of this is Using Facebook and Tumblr to Engage Students, by Carol Holstead and Doug Ward.
Reference:
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin..