And some blogs to check out, too...

Yesterday I was in Orlando, Florida, to accept a "2006 Best of the Education Blogs" award from eSchool News on behalf of my colleague Andrew Rotherham (whose wife was delivering twins at the time) for his blog Eduwonk, which I played a small role in helping launch.

In addition to a nice framed plaque I got to meet and chat with some of the other recognized bloggers: Frank LaBanca, whose blog Applied Science Research was recognized for best classroom instruction blog for students (LaBanca actually uses it as an instructional tool to facilitate students' thinking and writing about the topics they study in class and allow them to see each others' work.), Bill MacKenty, who was recognized for his blog MacKenty.org, and Wesley Fryer, whose blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity was recognized for best education theory blog. Also recognized were Tim Stahmer, whose blog Assorted Stuff was recognized as best classroom instruction blog for teachers, Darren Cannell, who writes Teaching and Developing Online, and David Warlick for his blog 2 Cents Worth.

My initial exposure to blogs was through the world of political blogs as the "netroots" emerged on the scene, and I still tend to think about blogging primarily in terms of journalism, politics, and punditry. So it was interesting to me to realize that these other bloggers I met don't view blogging that way: They're actual classroom practitioners and see blogging in large part as a tool to share what they're doing with others, collaborate, get feedback, and grow professionally. LaBanca, as noted above, actually uses it as an instructional tool. And there are a growing number of teachers, through various channels, who are using blogging this way. (Steve Dembo, who manages one of those channels for Discovery Education, which sponsored the event, also has a pretty interesting blog.)

Because of the type of organization Education Sector is, Quick and Ed and Eduwonk look and will continue to look, much more like political or media blogs than the blogs I learned about yesterday, but it's interesting to learn about how other people are using this tool.