EdTech Magazine's 50 Must Read EdTech Blogs & my additions to list

EdTech Magazine is a great, free website that has tons of articles, resources, product and service reviews, information and more about edtech topics and products. It is a great resource for any educator, educational technology specialist or director, or technology personnel.

They just published an article "50 Must Read K-12 IT Blogs" that is a list, with short description and link, of 50 different edtech blogs. I was surprised, and honored, to find myself on the list. There are some great blogs on there, like Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne, David Warlick's Blog, Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog, David Pogue's tech blog on the NY Times, Tech&Learning Magazine's blog section, and many more.

I would have also included the following blogs in the list:



1.  Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites - Jerry has created a one-stop-find-everything resource for educational topics and edtech resources. If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. Period.

2.  Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber-Hero - David Kapuler's blog is a great place to find tons of great educational resources and apps.

3. Connected Principals - a great blog for ideas and resources on edtech, and education, from an administrator's viewpoint.




4. Discovery Educator Network Blogs - great resource with links, ideas, resources and much more - not just on Discovery Education materials either.


Remember, if you weren't on this list and are an edtech blogger, don't worry. These lists, like all lists, are fun, great to be mentioned on, but don't mean your blog isn't an awesome resource too!

Plagiarism of my blog happening right now

The other day, Richard Byrne over at Free Technology for Teachers, emailed me to let me know that a site was stealing content from my blog. The site, http://educationsideasandtips.blogspot.com/, seems to be automatically reposting entire articles from my blog. I have been using Richard's great post "What To Do When Your Work Is Plagiarized" to work to get the site shut down. There is no real way to contact the blog owner, but I have filed a complaint with Google/Blogger.



I have had a few other blogs do the same thing, but when I contacted the blog owner, they apologized and changed how they shared my content. I spend a lot of time on this blog and I don't think it's too much to ask that people don't blatantly copy entire posts, no matter whether they put a link back or not.

I have no problem with people sharing what I write about, but it should be a summary and then link to my article. Copying entire blog posts, even with a link back to my site, is plagiarism and violates the CC license and is just bad practice.

I want to thank Richard for finding this site and bringing it to my attention.

A Great Blog post on teacher uses of Evernote

"Evernote – an attempt at the definitive summary of teacher uses!" is a great blog post by Richard Lambert that does a really good job of describing some great ways of using Evernote in education. As a huge Evernote fan, and user, I'm always looking for new ways of using Evernote as an educator.

One of his ideas is to use Evernote to record and track student performance and work. Audio notes, photos, uploads of student work, all tied to notes for that student, make it much easier to evaluate a student and their learning. It is a kind of e-portfolio of the student's progress through the class. 

Read his whole article here: http://richlambert.edublogs.org/2012/02/07/evernote-the-definitive-post/

I'm adding it to my Evernote for Education Resource page. 

Thank you and Farewell to TeachPaperless Blog

Shelly Blake-Plock is the creator of the blog "TeachPaperless." It was one of the first education blogs I found and started reading years ago and was one of the ones that convinced me that I should start my own blog. His blog was not limited to articles on going paperless, but rather had articles about thinking outside the box as an educator and doing different things with your students. I took many of his ideas and integrated them into my classes.

A couple of years ago Shelly asked me to contribute to his blog and I did write some articles for it. It was a great way to get more exposure for myself and my ideas. 

TeachPaperless had great articles, and great conversations in the comments sections. I learned and expanding my thinking because of this blog. 

Last Friday, Shelly posted that he was shutting down TeachPaperless and there would be no more postings. The site is still available for viewing, http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/ and I highly recommend that people go there and read some of the great articles that are there. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank Shelly for his excellent blog, his excellent writings and ideas, and for helping me start as a blogger and for helping me thinking differently about how to help my students do well in school and teach them in new ways. Good luck to him in his future endeavors!

Related:

What I learned this year.

Some more tips for going paperless

Paper, we don't need no paper! Tools and tips for going paperless

Unfettered by Stuff - or "Why I don't lug stuff home every night"