Wednesday, December 2, 2009

2009 Edublog Awards

The 2009 Edublog Awards are upon us again. Here are my nominations for this year.

Best individual blog: Mike Bogle - http://www.techticker.net
Mike is incredibly reflective and models reflective practice so effectively. At the same time, his posts are challenging and informative - I learn so much from him.

Best individual tweeter: Jo Hart - http://twitter.com/JoHart
There are heaps of people in my Twitter network I would like to nominate, but I have narrowed it down to Jo. This is not so much for the content of her tweets but because she always responds to my calls for help, information and support. I would like to thank her (and her husband Phil) for responding so generously to my call's for help when I was organizing and facilitating the virtual 24 hour International Day of the Midwife back in May. She donated her time freely at all hours of the day and night, and for that I am really grateful.

Best student blog: Rachel Byers - http://rachele-learning.blogspot.com
Rachel is a student in the course 'Facilitating Online'. She is reflective, honest and open and demonstrates beautifully how blogs can be used for processing learning and documenting reflection.

Best resource sharing blog: SLENZ - http://slenz.wordpress.com
I have to admit to some bias in nominating the Second Life Education New Zealand project blog because I was part of the SLENZ team. Nevertheless, it is an amazing blog that has shared every resource, process and document to do with the SLENZ project. This is an essential place to go if you are planning an educational project using Second Life.

Most influential blog post: Ann Marie Cunningham "Tech addiction 'harms learning' .....really??? $24.99 and I am no wiser" -
http://wishfulthinkinginmedicaleducation.blogspot.com/2009/09/tech-addiction-harms-learning-really.html
To me, this post really demonstrates how blogging can be an academic exercise. In it Anne Marie models critical thinking and reflective practice. Anne reminds us of the importance of not taking research at face value, and how to critique information and ask probing questions about reports that come from very credible websites.

Best teacher blog: Leigh Blackall http://leighblackall.blogspot.com
Leigh continues to challenge my thinking about education. I still don't understand half of what he talks about, anymore than I did when I nominated him last year, but I never stop learning from him.

Best educational use of video/visual: Pam Harden
http://www.youtube.com/user/Midwifepam#p/u
Midwife Pam is using YouTube videos that she has made to deliver pregnancy and birth information to young women in antenatal classes. She also incorporates Twitter and Facebook into her teaching. She is way ahead of her peers in the field of childbirth education.

Best educational wiki: Wikieducator http://wikieducator.org
Not just a place to find open educational resources but also has an amazing international community of educators behind it always willing to help and support.

Best educational use of a social networking service: Australian Flexible Learning Framework
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/flexiblelearning
This site has changed my thinking about the value of Facebook. It informs me, provides me with resources and updates me on events. It also gives me the opportunity to connect with others who are interested in the same issues as myself. I have found this to be an invaluable service.

Best educational use of a virtual world: The UC Davis Virtual Hallucination simulation http://slurl.com/secondlife/sedig/27/45/22/
I would really like to nominate the virtual birthing unit but I feel that wouldn't be allowed because it would sort of be nominating myself! So instead I would like to nominate the Virtual Hallucination. This is a very simple build and has been around for a few years. But it's potential to change people's views, knowledge and understanding of what it feels like to have schizophrenia is huge. I believe it is a 'must' for any student studying to be a health professional.

Lifetime achievement: Stephen Downes http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
What can I say about Stephen that hasn't already been said! A great contributor to the world of education.

What are your nominations going to be this year? For more information about how to nominate people, please go to the Edublog Award website.

6 comments:

Jo said...

Wow! Sarah thank you so much! I feel most honoured by your nomination, and pleased to have been of help. I always enjoy our conversations on Twitter and elsewhere.

Mike Bogle said...

Awe thanks Sarah :) I do appreciate it! It's perhaps the ultimate irony for me with blogging - I started using it as a tool for personal learning without any thought of ANYONE ever being interested in reading it.

I still find it fascinating that people find value in what I say, but I benefit tremendously from the experience and the discussions and relationships that have emerged and evolved from it.

It's a truly amazing medium I think, and I'm quite happy to have found it - because otherwise, I never would have met amazing people like you, Ed Webb, Lisa Lane, and countless others.

Cheers and thanks again!

Mike

Anne Marie Cunningham said...

Sarah,
Thank you so much for the nomination. I'm shocked- really!
Thank you for all your encouragement throughout my first year of blogging.
Anne Marie

Rachel said...

Gosh - just read Herve's blog and then yours to see that you have nominated me for this award! I am somewhat lost for words - thank you so much, very kind.

Leigh Blackall said...

:P you never listen

Eportfolios
Secondlife
Noodle
Wikieducator

What can I say. You learn from your mistakes. My job is to make sure of it!

Sarah Stewart said...

Thank you, Leigh...much appreciated as always :)

The final irony is that neither our nominations
(My blog was nominated here: http://brandon-hall.com/janetclarey/?p=1707)
got through to the next stage :)