Teacher Blogs

I've chosen to follow a few teacher blogs for a varitey of reasons.  Not only are they helpful in terms of insight, but they also provide a number of resources for teachers to use.  The first blog I added is http://www.freetech4teachers.com/.  This blog offers a ton of information regarding educational technology for use in schools, web 2.0, etc.  It also is helpful because of the frequency with which it is updated with extra information.  Several posts are available daily.  The second blog is  http://sciencestuffbyamy.blogspot.com/.  It gives some insight into science classrooms.  It also offers a lot of science resources and pictures and discussions regarding the effectiveness of the resources in class.  The third blog I chose to add is http://www.edutechintegration.net/.  This is not as frequently updated as the other two but it offers links to a lot of great sites for science education and web 2.0 tools.  It is something I can use as a bookmarked page to use to test some new tools.

I've decided to try and follow some teachers and teacher educators on Twitter.  First, I followed Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) who focuses on bringing the Internet to teachers by blogging about web 2.0 resources and other digital technologies.  Carol Tonhauser (@cmt1), EdTech Facilitator at University of Alberta, gives you practical ways to bring technology into your classroom.  Josh Allen (@j_allen) tweets to help teachers effectively implement technology in their classrooms. He also offers a lot of technology-based resources to use with students.  "If technology is an event in your school, you are doing it wrong."  @TeacherBeat is the site for Education Week and provides insights and updates on teacher news and politics.  @edutopia – Edutopia: “Inspiration and information for what works in education”; a great resouce and something to add to the blog section as well.  Edutopia offers great ideas and sources for ed technology and how to implement certain tools in the classroom.

So far this semester, I haven't used twitter much at all.  I find that I've fought the urge to join for so long that giving in will seems like giving up. I however haven't fully considered the uses professionally for Twitter.  It is something I should begin to use a little more, at least to follow others, if not tweeting my own insights.  My Feedly has beem used as an early morning headline list.  I browse through and read what looks intriguing.  At that time of day, however, it seems the sports feeds are at the top of my list.  I need to start looking at my feedly at lunch or after work.