Thought I would start my Winter Break with a tour of the 2009 Edublog Awards. At first glance, it looks a bit like a “round up of the usual suspects,” with awards going to many folks I’ve been following for sometime – and whose contributions to the edublogosphere continue to inform and inspire my teaching practice and toolkit.

But thanks to the awards, I’ve added three new blogs to my Google Reader:

• Happy Rainbow – Mr. Halpern’s byline of “Journey of a Male Kindergarten Teacher” kind of says it all. I’m glad to have to this window into the kindergarten world (pretty much an unknown territory for me).
• Billings Beta – In so many school districts, those school-to-home connections start to get a little fuzzy at the middle school level.  I doubt if this is the case at Billings Middle School, with Jac de Haan, the school’s Technology Integration Coordinator, posting about relevant topics, such as Facebook updates and digital identities.
• Ms. Yollis’s Classroom Blog – I really value having tips from primary teachers on how post comments to a blog. Visuals such as the chart below help make the art of digital composing visible – and help move students beyond “me too” and “that’s cool” kinds of comments:
  

  http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-comment-on-our-blog.html

Congratulations to all the 2009 Edublog Award winners!