BP2_2010041_EduUses4Blogs

The educational blogosphere is getting broader every day. With more and more educators getting their technological prowess up to snuff I expect this trend to continue. The essence of a blog is sharing your thoughts and ideas digitally over the internet, and who doesn’t think they have something worthwhile to say? Although this has proven very beneficial for building a broad knowledge base, it also leads to one of the basic dilemmas of the internet: sorting through the fluff in order to connect to something with real meaning. Talking about educational uses for blogs is like talking about trees. What kind, color, size, and purpose do you prefer, because chances are it’s out there!

The Online Education Database published a list of the ‘Top 100 Educational Blogs” in 2006 (http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs#specialty). Topics included college, E-Learning, education news, education policy, internet learning, library and research, specialty, teaching, and technology. This is an extremely brief list. Chances are, with a good Google search you can find a blog dealing with anything you want in education.

I wanted to check out some education technology and engineering blogs dealing with more “old fashioned” technology. (You know, build-it-out-of-stuff type technology) It’s there. I found some unique project ideas being shared for high school engineering classes. In the process I stumbled upon a blog created by a tech integration teacher, http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com. Her blog has this statement at the top: “Tech Integration Tips and Web Links to Increase Your Teacher Nerdiness Levels.” This is an absolute gold mine of information that will be useful to me as a teacher and a Full Sail student.

The educational uses of blogs are the same as a personal use of blogs; sharing information with a wide audience. Whether it’s a student sharing his thoughts on a poetry reading or a tech teacher sharing her insight on a Web 2.0 application, the blog is all about sharing!