2.++Educational+Blogs

Submit your examples of EDUCATIONAL blogs (not random blogs) here. Check page 190 in your text if you have questions related to educational blogs.
Brianna Duvall- Gaggle Blogs http://gaggle.net/gen?_template=/templates/gaggle/html/blog/index.jsp&gclid=CNWX4Z29qpYCFQkcHgodSE4AzQ Gaggle Blogs is a website that teachers and students can use to create blogs about whatever subject they would like to talk about. You can view others blogs and search for certain blogs. You can also search by location and see the the most popular blogs. You have to create a Gaggle account before creating a blog. You can only get a Gaggle account through your school. If you are a teacher than you can create an account for your students so they will be able to use this website. Teachers control what can be written in the blogs and who can correspond with the students. The Gaggle blogs are safe and filtered for inappropriate language or phrases. If any rules are violated the the offending blog will be blocked and reported to the administrator through e-mail.

Steve Cavaligos – So You Want To Teach? http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/ Education for Educators. That is the motto for this blog written by an experienced band teacher from Texas. I originally came across this blog when I was questioning my own motives for becoming a teacher and have check it from time to time since then. Even though I don’t want to be a band teacher I think that the discussions on this blog with more experienced teachers can help new teachers avoid making common mistakes by learning from the mistakes of others. Some of the posting are specific for band teachers but there are also “guest bloggers” who make posts with heading such as “Life Lessons” and “Tips for Rookie Teachers.” The initial posts are then commented on by other educators who have also read the articles, not too different from our webct online discussions.

Ness Garland- Education blogs- families [|http//education.families.com] This is a website where you can find different articles and blogs regarding families and education. On this website you can find many articles that people from all over have posted regarding education around the country and issues that may be dealing with in their town. On this site you have to sign up to be a member in order to post your blogs. Once a member you can find pictures of members, and go to tags of subjects that you are interested in outside of education and see what people have to say about the different issues.


 * Bonnie Breckenridge-Educational Warehouse-Blogs
 * [|Educationalwarehouse/blogs.com] http://community.educationalwarehouse.com/blogs/
 *  Educational Warehouse is an educational blog that teachers, students, parents, and the public may use. It is a place where you can go and ask educational questions and get responses from other people that are members of the website. They have a wide range of topics within the blogs such as, Book Reviews, Trunk or Treat, and much more. Just click on a topic and start reading and typing. These blogs are used for awareness, problem solving, and much more. Not only can you get answers but you can answer other people. In my opinion it is very disorganized.

Laurie Peterson - Educational Blogs [|http://www.specialedlaw.blogs.com] Special Education Law Blog (SELB) is an invaluable and absolutely creditable resource for educators, parents, student researchers or any agency advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. SELB is a legal resource providing current case law discussions, current news articles, practical advocacy advice and the latest developments in state and federal laws, statutes and regulations. Legal questions and comments can be directed to the blogs creator, Charles P. Fox, a Chicago, Illinois attorney and adjunct instructor at DePaul Law School’s Special Education Clinic. When users access the SELB they will find the most current information pertaining to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) amendments and can conveniently scroll down and read questions and comments or post a comment.

Adam Sharp- Special Education Law Blog http://specialedlaw.blogs.com/ On this blog website it reviews many of the political cross hairs that are affecting special education issues. On this site you will be able to read some expressions on how the current candidate’s views are on special education and what they intend on doing for this program. Also there are blogs on the different issues that special education deals with on a regular basis and what kinds of things are being done to improve special education. Overall this site for blog's is a form of expression for those who are concerned with the direction of special education and where it is headed.

Patty Landsly – Utilizing blogs in the classroom [|Classroom blogging]
 * This blog is written by a 5th grade teacher, who is now an instructional technology facilitator, to help support other teachers in a positive creative way. There is a good reference section on setting up classrooms blogs as well as the creator’s blog about using technology in the classroom. The posts are a bit sporadic but the content is valuable to teachers just learning to use technology in the classroom. It makes good connections between the mechanics of how to the technology and ways to incorporate it into lesson plans to make it meaningful. Some of the topics include power point, “voicethreads”, blogging, and iTouch technology. There are also helpful links to other sites and tools used to create blogs. **

Monica Maurer – TeachAde blogs [|www.**teachade.com**/EducationalBlogs.do] TeachAde is a free educational resource website for teachers. You must first sign up and become a member, but it offers many beneficial sources. The blog has a search feature that allows you to search for the topic or subject you are interested in talking about. Some discussion boards ask that you request to join, but others let you simply join in and make comments. You can share photos, lesson plans and other multimedia files, or you can download these files that have been provided by other teachers. This site is considered a social networking site, but the blog contains many interesting topics such as technology and digital storytelling.

Jake Meyers- A Difference http://adifference.blogspot.com/# This website has a place for bloggers to post their own thoughts and articles that they find interesting that relate to education. It is a free website that educators can sign up for and exchange ideas. On the website teachers exchange ideas that they believe to be effective in the classroom and receive feedback from other educators. It is an open forum for educators from across the nation to discuss the issues they believe to be the most important for teachers today. Some posts are very detailed in the execution of a lesson plan and would make a great source for finding solutions to classroom issues. The website also has a podcast feature that allows posters to record and post their thoughts in a voice message.

Timothy Thrasher- 21 Classes http://www.21classes.com/shop/about This educational blog is called 21 classes. This is a really good tool for both teachers and students. The sign up for an account is absolutely free and very simple to do. Once you have set up an account you can customize your blog community, basically who can view your blogs. There are a lot of really cool features like uploading your photos and videos for sharing, team blogs, setting privacy settings, as well as other features. I found this blog very useful; it can really help both the teacher and the students. The students are able to express themselves and what’s on their minds. As a teacher you can get to know what’s on your more. This is really useful for the teachers because they are able to communicate with their classmates and their teacher.

Aubrey Findley- Kathy Schrock Educational Blogs http://kathyschrock.net/edtechblogs.htm

This website is not its own blog. But Kathy Schrock weeds out all of the bad ones and actually puts good, helpful blogs on her page. She has made different categories for each one. Some are more popular than others. It contains many controversial topics. Each different blog is from a different person so it has a wide variety of points of views and methods. It is extremely useful for students and teachers to use. They all have fun names and were created by people who are real people with real problems.


 * Meghan Smith- ClassPress
 * [|http://www.classpress.com]
 * The example I have chosen for Educational Blogs is ClassPress. This is, what I feel a great educational blogging environment for students. This website offers a lot of really advantageous features to a classroom. They offer a private blog space for each individual teacher’s classroom. This helps with internet safety and to allow students to only be able to respond back to things that only their own classmates said. Also, they offer a feature, which I personally find very helpful, which allows students to post pictures, movies, polls and much more to their blog. This is critical when a student is trying to get a point across. Because they are given the opportunity to show actual data to back them up. No advertisements also help with the safety of students. The only draw back is that you must have the funding to pay for this blog site.

Stephanie Colby--Teacher Lingo Blog [|http://teacherlingo.com][|/] Teacher Lingo is a website for teachers and educators everywhere to connect. Teachers can share ideas, ask questions, learn from each other, or vent about their school day with other teachers. It is free to have a blog and there are plenty of advertisements for classroom materials for the teachers to see. I think this is a good website for teachers to blog because they can relate to other teachers that might feel the same way they do or have a similar problem. I would definitely like this website if I was a teacher because I could learn how to become a better teacher in the classroom and learn how to handle difficult decisions the right way. There are also other links for classroom materials I might need and can use in my classroom as well.

Crue Harmon – Safe student blogging http://my.echalk.com/?elqPURLPage=55?g=blogs&gclid=CIzE-YrAu5YCFQOaFQodyyWcLQ This website is most definitely a great and safe way for kids, K-12 to communicate with each other in a safe and secure way. “Echalk” is also for parents and teachers to explore and learn different learning styles from other students or teachers. This website also enables you to go back to previous archives instead of just being automatically deleted in time. This is a good way for people to look back on what worked and what did not work. Student blogging is a great way for students to get a little edge on others and be able to speak much better in the classroom on various topics.

Adam Padjen- Teacherlingo http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/default.aspx?GroupID=7 Teacher lingo is a site that connects all teachers to talk to each other who chose to blog on the site. This site has links for all levels of teachers to blog about anything and has spots to respond to whatever you would like to respond to. I personally like this site because you read about some of the same things that happen to you every day and it shows that you are not the only one dealing with certain things. This also gives you the ability to read about how other teachers deal with certain problems. This site is very easy to navigate through and a great source for all teachers to hear what other teachers have done or gone through.

Corey Heisel--lets play math http://www.blogged.com/blogs/lets-play-math.html This site is great for everytype of educational blog imaginable. I tried to find a blog related to math because thats the type of teacher I want to be. This math blog is great because not only does it give a history of math but it allows students and teachers to post responces. I think that this is a great tool for teachers and students because it will allow students another way to conect with their teachers and get help out of school. Also from a teaching aspect the site lets other teachers share teaching techniques and give advise on how to deal with problems they might be having covering certain topics in their classes.