Great Blogs!

I'm not sure if some of you watching this blog are aware, but I am in ECMP355, an online course about technology and incorporating it into classrooms offered through the University of Regina's Faculty of Education, and there are a number of people in my class who have excellent blogs to follow.
I currently follow them and they are fantastic! These people are smart and wizards with Blogger, Wordpress, and even Twitter!

So part two of techtask #3 was to follow 3 new education related blogs.

Here are 3 that I found to be fascinating.

Click on this image to be taken to the Getting Smart Blog page

Getting Smart
http://gettingsmart.com/cms/blog/

While this is an entire website, I have recently discovered the wealth of knowledge on the blog page. There are various posts by different people with expertise in different areas of Education.  I love this blog for the variety it provides as well as the depth of knowledge that has been shared.  Right now the page I have been fascinated with is the 5 ways to use Google Docs in your classroom.  After hearing all the great things about Google from Michael Wacker, I have been searching for more information on how this great tool can be used in a classroom and this blog provided some great ideas.

Learning and Sharing with Ms. Lirenman
http://learningandsharingwithmsl.blogspot.ca/

Photo from Learning and Sharing with Ms. L Blog, click the photo to go to the blog.

I admire Ms.Karen Lirenman in her blog.  Striving to be the best educator is something everyone should do, but to still be striving after 20 years of experience inspires me and made me realize education is a constantly changing field, with something new to learn everyday.
I also appreciate her use of technology in her classroom and reading about her use of iPads and blogs in her classroom. She has also embraced online learning in her classroom, which seems terrifying to me, yet her posts explain how she has done things and why, and makes online learning experiences in Grade 1 seem not scary at all.


Professional Ponderings of a Lerd
ldrenton.edublogs.org

Photo from Professional Ponderings of a Lerd, the comment the class composed.

I discovered this blog through a posting on Twitter from people in the #etmooc group. I was intrigued by the name of the blog "Professional Ponderings of a Lerd", and was curious as to what a Lerd is/was.  After reading a bit and watching a video I discovered that a Lerd is a learning nerd. How do people come up with these things?!?  I must admit I can be a nerd, especially when learning and discovering new things, but to create the portmanteau (a word I was excited to learn recently).  Wow!  This lady must be a genius, which she is.  Her blog is laid back, relaxed, and full of information relating to her classroom and #etmooc. My favourite post on this blog was about her students responding to a parent's post on a classroom blog.  Allowing students to have complete control of their responses as a class and allowing them to work together as a group  shows them how to properly compose a comment and respond online. It was great to read about how the students worked together and how she was able to step back, give up complete control, and observe the students and their own learning.