I am asking my students to expand their blog roll today in my SEDU 183 class Teaching and Learning with Technology. In doing so, I decided to model the expectations for my students (always good teaching practice). Anyway, this weekend's assignment is to locate two outside blogs, add those new blogs to their blog roll, and then post about what is so great about these selected blogs. The added requirement is to hyperlink the titles of each blog.
The first blog I would like to highlight is Dean Shareski's Thoughts and Ideas blog. Dean's blog was an exemplar in Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed). This blog has evolved since the publication, as I am sure Dean has. What I truly like about Thoughts and Ideas is Dean's readable voice. I know that's corny, but I really like his writing style. It is conversational while being wise at the same time. I really enjoyed reading his post "Things that Suck". The obvious title drew me in, but here he shared a unique way to share "civil discourse" while exploring and sharing diverse opinions. This is great for a classroom teacher to promote discussion, an administrator to use with parents groups, and budding professors like myself who dislike the echos in the ivory tower and would much rather hear the ramble of academic discord. I recommend checking out Dean's blog and adding it to your reading list.
The other groovy blog I would like to shine a little light on is the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Viki Davis. I stumbled on this a few years back when I was a high school English/Literature teacher and found it very useful. Viki's post from last October, "10 Ways to be a Terrible Teacher" is indicative of her whimsical common sense style that makes a blog reading fun and insightful. Not to mention her blog has over 6,000 readers and won the Blog of the Year in 2008. Too cool.
The first blog I would like to highlight is Dean Shareski's Thoughts and Ideas blog. Dean's blog was an exemplar in Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed). This blog has evolved since the publication, as I am sure Dean has. What I truly like about Thoughts and Ideas is Dean's readable voice. I know that's corny, but I really like his writing style. It is conversational while being wise at the same time. I really enjoyed reading his post "Things that Suck". The obvious title drew me in, but here he shared a unique way to share "civil discourse" while exploring and sharing diverse opinions. This is great for a classroom teacher to promote discussion, an administrator to use with parents groups, and budding professors like myself who dislike the echos in the ivory tower and would much rather hear the ramble of academic discord. I recommend checking out Dean's blog and adding it to your reading list. 
The other groovy blog I would like to shine a little light on is the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Viki Davis. I stumbled on this a few years back when I was a high school English/Literature teacher and found it very useful. Viki's post from last October, "10 Ways to be a Terrible Teacher" is indicative of her whimsical common sense style that makes a blog reading fun and insightful. Not to mention her blog has over 6,000 readers and won the Blog of the Year in 2008. Too cool.
