Mobile Technology in TAFE

I would like to congratulate all winners of the Edublog Awards 2007 and Student 2.0 for receiving the Convener’s Award. While this blog didn’t win in it’s categories, being a finalist for three different Edublog Award categories is reward enough, especially when you realise I have only been blogging 8 months. Thanks to all the people who nominated and voted for this blog.

The Award Ceremony

The Award Ceremony held at Joykadia in Second Life was incredible as it was my first time experiencing a large gathering. Thankfully all my playing in SL over the past few months meant I managed okay, even if I did have an “out of body” experience where I went for a look around without my avatar and then realised that getting back to my body was not as easy as I thought. Photo by Betchaboy.

Unfortunately so many people in a small area with everyone’s avatars names floating above their heads was overwhelming — I did get a headache!!! And to make matters worse, now that I look at the Flickr photos people have taken, I now realise that I could have turned off the names!!!!!! @#*@ Let’s hope Jo Kay does not take away “my Second Life License”. Looks like my punishment will have to be more time hanging out with friends in SL.

I should point out that it is great our readers support us! Telling my hubby, family and students, about the Awards went well until asked where the Award Ceremony was going to be held — after which there was much laughter at the idea of it being held in Second Life. Us bloggers are soooooo misunderstood by those close to us!

While I did not worry too much about my clothes I have to give full marks to Kathryn for creating a new Avatar for her blog for the Awards — thankfully she IM me or I wouldn’t have realised it was her.

Check Out The Finalists

Make sure you take the time to check out both the Winners and the Finalists of the Edublog awards because there are great blogs and resources worth reading.

I already subscribed to many of the finalists, and it is impossible to showcase all the great work done by all of them, however here are a few of the gems I have gained from some of the “new-to-me’ blogs I have found as a result of the awards:

• I really love Martin Weller’s The Ed Techie blog - loved his visual representation of My Personal work/leisure/learning environment and his What Web 2.0 apps would you least like to lose?
• Great tip on customising YouTube Videos from Jim Gate’s Tipline - Gates Computer Tips blog - congratulations on winning best resource sharing blog
• Enjoyed reading many articles from LeaderTalk especially that my blogging block may indicate stress. Lets hope my doctor does not hear about this

FINAL THOUGHT

Blogging can be very lonely if you feel what you are saying is not being heard. Thanks to all my readers who take the time to read my posts and for letting me know that what I write makes a difference in your life.

If you have checked out the Finalists, please let me know what gems you gained.

Also I am always on the lookout for new blogs to read, so please feel free to recommend ones you think I would like.

WOW…I am very blown away honoured to learn that Mobile Technology in TAFE blog is a finalist in the 2007 Edublog Awards in three separate categories: Best Individual Blog; Best New Blog and Best Ed Tech Support blog. Thanks to my readers for nominating my blog for the awards.

The winners will be announced at the Award ceremony which will be held in Second Life on Saturday December 8. In the meantime you can vote for your favourite finalists here by clicking on the category title.

For those new to the Edublog Awards — it is a community based incentive run on a voluntary basis. The awards were originally set up 4 years ago in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learners and teachers blog sites for educational purposes. Unfortunately 4 years later we are still faced with the same issues.

The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social softwares. While it is really nice to be nominated we need to remember the best aspects of the awards is it creates a fabulous resource for educators to use for ideas on how social software is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners; which means we are introduced to new sites that we might not have found if not for the awards process.

So I strongly recommend that you take the time to visit the web sites of the Edublogs Award Finalists and grab this opportunity to add some excellent educational blogs to your feed reader.

Congratulations to all of the nominees in each category but a specific hooooray to:

• Leonard Low’s Mobile Learning, Stephen Downes’s OLD Daily and Arthus’s Newly Ancient (Arthus is a high school student from USA) for Best Individual Blog
• Chris Betcher’s Betchablog, Graham Wegner’s Teaching Generation Z, Clay Burell’s Beyond School and Vicki Davis’s Cool Cat Teacher for Best Teacher Blog
• Judy O’Connell’s Hey Jude, Kathryn Greenhill’s My Librarian Matters and Cathy Nelson’s TechnoTuesday (Best Librarian/ Library blog)
• Jo Kay and Sean Fitzegerald (Best Educational Use of a Virtual World).
• Tony Karrer’s Elearning Technology (Best Elearning/Corporate education blog)

With my proliferation of web sites it is easy to understand why most forget that I am relatively a newbie in terms of the educational use of Web 2.0 technologies. Putting it in context last year was the first time I had heard about the Edublog Awards, and that was after the event. This year I now know what the Edublog Awards 2007 and can be part of the nomination process.

I know that many of my readers are in similar position to myself, being new to the educational use of these technologies, so I decided to provide an overview of the Edublog Awards so we can all be part of the process.

The Edublog Awards is a community based incentive that has been running for 4 years on a voluntary basis and is jointly convened this year by Josie Fraser and James Farmer. The awards were originally set up 4 years ago in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learners and teachers blog sites for educational purposes. mmmm sad to realise that 4 years later blocking access is still an issue.

The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social softwares. Nominations are open to anyone, in a range of categories, until the 21st of November, after which finalists will be chosen then voting, open to everyone, will commence. The Award ceremony will be held in Second Life on Saturday December 8.

The best aspects of the Edublog awards is it creates a fabulous resource for educators to use for ideas on how social software is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners; which means we are introduced to new sites that we might not have found if not for the awards process.

The Edublog Awards are accepting nominations in the following educational blog and educational software categories:

1. Best individual blog - best educational blog maintained by an individual
2. Best group blog - best educational blog maintained by more than one person
3. Best new blog - best new educational blog (group or individual) of 2007
4. Best resource sharing blog - best educational blog of whose primary purpose is to share information, links and resources.
5. Best designed blog - most beautiful educational blog
6. Most influential blog post - The educational blog post that has had the biggest impact (for better or worse!)
7. Best blogged research paper or project - The best research paper or project in any field that has been committed to an eeducational blog
8. Best teacher blog - best blog kept by a teacher for or about teaching
9. Best higher-education student blog - best blog kept by a student in higher education (16+)
10. Best librarian / library blog - best educational blog kept by, for or about a library or librarian.
11. Best educational tech support blog - best educational blog for providing hints, tips and support for your tech needs.
12. Best elearning / corporate education blog - best educational blog kept by or written about education and training in a business context.
13. Best educational use of audio - best use of the audio medium in any form.
14. Best educational use of video / visual - best use of the visual medium in any form.
15. Best educational wiki - best educational use of a wiki.
16. Best educational use of a social networking service - best educational use of any social networking service.
17. Best educational use of a virtual world - best educational use of any virtual world space.
18. Best educational use of open source - best educational use of an open source platform.
19. Digizen’s 13-19 competition - For young people creating and sharing online resources around the theme of cyberbullying
20. Conveners award - A special award given to an educational blog that particularly deserves to be of note.

Check out the 2006 Winners, 2005 Winners and 2004 Winners to learn more about the Edublog Awards.

So it is now time for us to all start nominating — we only have until 21 November. The only problem I have is there are way more categories this year (I think?) and we all know that I have problems making decisions. Would love to hear your suggestions for sites we should nominate for some of categories — I love checking out new resources.