2011 Edublog Nominations

Almost everyone on twitter is talking about the Edublog Awards right now and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that with almost 3 years of being on twitter I've never paid attention to the Edublog Awards. I can recall seeing tweets about it and have seen Edublog Award badges on some blogs, but never stopped to find out what it was about. This weekend, someone from twitter nominated my blog in her Edublog Nominations post here. It was a nice little pat on the back for me, which my husband promptly told me not to let go to my head since "anyone can nominate anyone." I do have to side with my husband (rare occasion that shouldn't go to his head) that the award itself is a bit silly, but what I do find of value in the Edublog Awards is the opportunity it provides for educators to share the favorite blogs that they are learning from. In just 5 minutes of exploring the Edublog Awards page I found several great new blogs that I wasn't previously following and immediately added to my google reader.

So, now that I'm aware of The Edublog Awards this time around, I am posting my nominations in hopes that someone else finds a great blog that they haven't previously been following:

Best Group Blog: Connected Principals has been a great resource to me to follow posts from a variety of administrators. I have contributed to this group blog a couple of times, but benefit even more from what other administrators have to share in their posts.

Best New Blog: I've enjoyed reading It's All About Learning by @henriksent, a Canadian teacher/administrator that just recently began tweeting and blogging.

Best School Administrator's Blog: The Principal's Posts by @l_hilt is a blog I enjoy reading and learning from with each post she shares. She is a principal that challenges the status quo and is transparent about her learning.

Best Free Admin Resource: Eduleadership by @eduleadership started out as a blog, but now also contains podcasts, webinars, and iPad for administrator resources. Everything I've learned about organization/time management to become more effective as a principal, I've learned from Justin Baeder at Eduleadership.

Best Individual Blog: Since my school has gone school-wide with Daily 5/CAFE literacy framework, I have been following and learning from the Delightful Daily 5 Cafe Blog by @komos72, a 1st grade teacher implementing Daily 5/Cafe in her classroom and blogging about her experience and sharing her reflections to benefit other teachers. I have also enjoyed learning from her on twitter during the #d5chat (weekly daily 5 chats).

Best twitter hashtag: I have grown so much from what I have learned from others in the weekly #educoach chat, a chat for instructional coaches/leaders. I strongly believe that the principal role should be more of a coach than a manager/supervisor and have been improving in my role from the weeklky #educoach chat.

Best Free Web Resource: TeacherCast provides a variety of educational podcasts, screencasts, app reviews, etc.