Comments on: Edublog Awards/Edublog Evolution/Edublog Echo

By: readerdiane

readerdiane — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:36:11 +0000

Will,
It is the end of the year and I was taking stock. My students are evaluating their latest project and I want them to think about how much they have learned since they started with me. It got me to thinking about how much I have learned in this past year.

I want to thank you for getting me started down this journey I have been chugging along on. It absolutely amazes this 50 year old middle school teacher at how much I have learned in one year. Your blog and book were my starting points. I am also doing my best to spread the word.

In January I will be taking a podcasting class, teaching a University class for teachers and continuing to work with my students on new projects. I tell them that they are my guinea pigs and they love it. We are only at the beginning of what we can do but we have made such a great start. My class has been working on a blog, a wiki with powerpoints and research. Last year we didn’t even know what these things were.

Again I thank you for standing up and spreading the word. Don’t be discouraged because change does take awhile. We have a ways to go, but we have made some great progress in getting started. You have started more than you know. Have a great New Year.

By: Terry Elliott

Terry Elliott — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:37:27 +0000

Just keep telling your story. Each of us has a different arc to our tales. For example, my effort since I have moved over to the university has been to create communities of blogging practice where I am. I am trying to foster small networks among students, among faculty, and among administrators. I am learning how to do this and consider it to be the most important way I can help lead the folks closest to me toward that educational shift you and I know is inevitable. That is why my motto is an E.M. Forster quote, “Always connect.”

I see us as ever-expanding nodes on a map. We grow the local node and let the other nodes do as they will. All the work you do is toward that day. I thank you for that work in the most public way I can think of–blogging. Keep on!

By: Mike Radday

Mike Radday — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:59:07 +0000

For those in education who “get it” your blog has been the source of ideas and discussion about how we can truly transform teaching and learning. For me, in many ways, it’s been an a source of affirmation for what I believe professionally and what I expect from teachers. I agree that the way to reach those who can help facilitate change is through more traditional media – how ironic. I hope that your blog keeps the conversation going even as you focus on writing articles and books that will hopefully have a more far-reaching impact.

By: Carolyn F.

Carolyn F. — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:10:59 +0000

Will,

I agree that we are on the cusp of some big changes. I think suddenly in the “mainstream” world, that the conversation is shifting to a 21st century conversation, which needs to happen for reform to become “mainstream.” It’s as though the conversation is starting to leap past NCLB and into another much larger realm(witness the Time article you referenced).

I do want to say how valuable I have found your blog the last year. I think of the blogs I read frequently as sort of a fountainhead–
I read, get motivated and enthused, share it with my own faculty(on or offline) and it inspires me to think more widely, try more things, and continue the conversation.

To me that is the value beyond our own circle of conversations that we have within the blogs. Our enthusiasm grows, our pool of ideas is broadened, our thinking is deepened, and that is something all of us take back to wherever we are.

You are coming to our district to speak in February, so I am looking forward to how we can bring the conversation into our school in a deepened way.

Thanks as always for your thoughtful analysis.