The World of Education Technology Blogs
Blogs are a great way to keep up to date on various topics that interest you, and there are thousands of them out there that are sure to peak your interest. I have taken some time browsing through various sites that are dedicated to educational instruction and technology education. I thought I would take a moment and share a few of my favorites that you might find interesting as well. Enjoy!
Eric
This education technology blog founder is Ray Schroeder from the University of Illinois. It is a blog with various writers. Updates are done on a daily basis and has existed since 2002. It includes a number of various resources and articles that are valuable to an educator or anyone involved in educational instructional design. The topics can range from using technology in your classroom to using everyday technological tools, such as the smartphone to make education more fun and interesting for you and your students. It is also a worthwhile tool for anyone is an adult learner and taking online learning courses. The focus is to keep the reader up to date on the latest technology and instructional tools available. This blog is important for an educator to read since technology changes at such a rapid pace.
The only downside I see to this blog is that it does not allow for comments and is strictly an information only blog. It would benefit if educators and IT personnel could interact with one another. The site also goes out to other news agencies and sites and places links to stories that also relate to the education technology. It can be a valuable site to gather multiple sources into one place.
iLearn Technology
This education technology blog publisher is Kelly Tenkely, who is a former elementary and middle school history teacher. She is also a former technology integration specialist. This site devotes itself to giving assistance to educators with integrating technology into their classroom and daily lesson plans. It receives updates on a regular basis and has articles that vary across various curriculum. It is also a worthwhile blog since it gives access to lesson plans. Some of the materials are free and others cost a small fee, but many times it is worth it to have prepared lesson plans that give you detailed access to technology in the classroom.
The site also allows one to search for multiple articles and/or lesson plans based on various learning theories such as Bloom's taxonomy. It also allows one to narrow down topic fields by grade levels or subject matters in searching for items. The site does allow one to post comments and start various discussions with others on articles. It is difficult to find anything negative to say about this site. The publisher has a good background in education and technology, and the site design is user friendly and makes it easy to find items.
Always Learning
This education technology blog publisher is a teacher by the name of Kimberly Cofino, who is currently in her tenth year of teaching technology in international schools around the world. It receives updates often and is visually appealing with the use of pictures and videos to go along with the articles. This site gives the reader a global perspective on education and technology in the classroom and is a good source for learning about the unconventional teaching methods that most teachers use. The article focus is for teachers using technology in their classrooms. This site goes beyond the usual articles and gives the reader access to multimedia presentations and video training sessions. The site also gives links to other teachers and students blogs and projects from around the world that can be used in a conventional or non-conventional classroom setting.
The site does allow for comments on articles, so one can interact with other educators. It is a worthwhile blog to use since it takes perspective from a teacher who is currently active in a classroom setting and because it has a global perspective. Educators will find this site useful for technology and non-technology information that they can use in their own classrooms. The only complaint is the site does not allow for narrowing the search for articles according to specific key words or by grade levels. It is rather large and would be beneficial to be able to narrow the search down to more specifics.
Excellent entry, Eric. When I was still teaching, it seemed nearly impossible to get some of the older teachers to integrate technology into their lessons. Do you think resources like these are helpful the proverbial sticks-in-the-mud?
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