EduBlog review number five

Edublog review number five

http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/

 The blog is titled The Power of Educational Technology and it was created by Liz Davis.  Liz is the director of academic technology at Bellmont Hill school outside of Boston.  This is an independent school for boys grades 7-12.  I wonder if this being an all boys school, how much traditional gender stereotypes come in to play especially with the use of hands on tools by way of technology. 

 The blog itself is neatly organized and easy to read.  I wasn't to impressed with Liz's posts in general, they were often short but usually served the purpose.  I was impressed with the external links, the category links, and the 'blog rolls'.  It seems like everything and anything is within a click of a mouse.  There are ridiculous amounts of links to blogs from other bloggers dealing with education which shows the power of sharing and collaboration.  Most subject matter is either linked to a keyword from wiki to laptop, which makes it easy to research or check previous posts.  Liz even goes as far to recommend books she is reading and there are a few good titles both for business and pleasure.

 I was reading some of the top posts on the site and there are some informative 'rants' we'll call them that do make a lot of sense (stop beating up on teachers for example).  The post about Social Media is a pretty good one.  It informs parents of the dangers but also the positives involved with this software.  It would appear that Liz is very active in her profession and sits on many committee's and has several conferences she either attends or hosts.  her Blog is merely the vehicle to get the word out. She seems like she is a dedicated teacher and she is proud of her profession.  She is passionate and not afraid of change.  In fact she embraces it makes both parents and students feel comfortable with it.

 Liz even has a post on 10 tips to help you blog.  It is pretty basic but very relevant.  She has a wealth of knowledge and shares a lot of it through her blog.  Her experience is not  limited to American ideals or egocentric minds often associated with the US.  In fact she has gone to Shanghai and attended an educational conference which she states was very beneficial.  These are ideas that all teachers can use and promote in their schools.  It is not thrown in your face but most of her ideas are mere suggestions of what works and how to use it.     

EDU Blog review number four

Blog Review: http://bib20.blogspot.com/

The author of this blog, Jeri Hurd, has created an interesting blog linking an interest in teaching English, running a library and integrating technology.  She started in 2007 and has consistently updated.  Of course this interested me since I am trying to integrate technology into my library teaching and also have taken on a new role the past couple of years teaching middle school English and Social Studies. 

The post on the home page is “It’s Time to Get Seriously Angry” which piqued my curiosity and also made me jump to conclusions that this is a more political blog.  It turns out that she usually reserves her political commentary to her facebook but was really worked up about Illinois dropping the writing part of their standardized test.  She advocates political action.  I spent a long time perusing the blog.  Her info page indicates that she is an American although some posts show her to be in Mongolia.  I found that a little bit confusing.  Navigating the blog is not super easy as the Home Page is pretty convoluted.  However, that is because there is just so much she shares.

That said, there are several things on this blog that were great.  If you teach high school, there is a neat project with rubrics on “Animoto book trailers” and also on “creating a documentary”.  She seems to work with scripts and story boards which I think is very engaging for students.  She wrote an interesting post on Assessment which the crux was that teachers who assess get respect.  She provides several assessment tools as well.  She recommends pros and cons of several programs and lesson plans.  One to note is Common Sense Media with several lesson plans for each grade about how to protect their reputation in a digital world and exploring their identity.  I bookmarked this to explore later.  She also has an app called “goodreads” including Global Achievement Gap, Teaching Digital Generation which is an interesting sharing tool.  She also shared eschool news which updates Technology News for Today’s K20 Educator.