A Winning Post!!!

I rarely win anything. Really. Almost never. Every now and then, however, I have a little streak of luck (must be that Irish blood!) when things seem to go my way…

Thanks to a comment left on my last post by Mrs. Shori, a fellow edublogger, I learned that I was one of 14 winners in the Edublogger’s Birthday Celebration Competition! Wow! What an honour, I can’t thank Sue Waters and the Edublogger enough!

I am so grateful that my post was chosen from so many. I am most appreciative for the positive effect this will have on my students. The timing is perfect; I just created the art class blog, complete with 30 student blogs linked as the blogroll on the main class blog page. I applied my winnings, a free 12 month Edublogs supporter subscription, to the main class blog and the individual student blogs to enhance the students’ blogging experience. We are now ad free, we have extra widgets to play with, and I LOVE the Blog & User Creator ‘bulk feature’ which allowed me to create 15 student blogs at a time – what a great time saver!

Congratulations to all the other winners and thanks to all those who are visiting this space as a result of the win! I do appreciate your comments!

Imagery – Glittering Jewels in My Garden by cobalt123on flickr.com 

Edublog Awards

Ouch!! by /kallu on Flickr.com

Although it is a busy time of year, I found time to post! I am guilty, I admit, of placing sugar cookies and gingerbread ahead of posting on my priority list this past week!

If you haven’t already, you really should check out the edublogs nominated for the annual Edublog Awards. Education blogs, or edublogs, are written for many reasons, as shown by the various nomination categories. Anyone can vote (do it before December 21) and the winners are revealed just before Christmas – an early gift for those who celebrate Christmas!

The edublogs nominated are impressive. The educators responsible are doing amazing and inspirational work. I’ve been following some for awhile now, such as Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed and Clarence Fisher’s Remote Access. More recent favourites include Jan Smith’s Huzzah!, Miss Wyatt’s Technology in our Classroom and Sue Water’s Mobile Technology in TAFE. Congratulations to you all!

There is so much to learn from these people. While some edublogs offer great examples of how to use blogging to enhance students’ learning, others are set up for the sole purpose of resource sharing (you have to check out Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day – too good not to know about!).

Hopefully you’ll find the time to learn something new from these extraordinary educators! And some time for sugar cookies and gingerbread too, of course…