Those That Make Me Think (The Thinking Blogger Award)

Posted on February 24, 2008
Filed under Uncategorized

It’s always great to know that your blog has not only been noticed, but that someone has actually gained something from it. That’s what powers me on to keep blogging, as I’m sure it does for many other bloggers. It is easy to get into a bit of a rut though and think that no one would want to read what you’ve written - there’s always someone out there who has already written about it, or who on earth would want to know what you’re doing?!

It’s so important to remember that we ALL contribute something and we contribute it in our own way with our own perspective. We don’t all have to analyse everything and write deep and meaningful posts on it all. Just sharing what we are doing is enough. It’s so very easy to feel overwhelmed and inadequate, but I just remind myself that I am a learner too and will always be. So, if I have something that someone can learn from, then I’m rapt. If I’ve written something that makes someone else have a good think, then brilliant!

This all leads to me saying thank you to my treasured colleague, Anne Mirtschin, who has just tagged me with the Thinking Blogger Award. Anne, thank you for reminding me that I am making a contribution, depsite the fact that lately I hadn’t felt like I’d been doing much at all. It has been just the boost I’ve needed.

Anne says she’s learnt a lot from me which is so nice to hear. You should see it - I’m sitting at my desk in the staffroom and here comes Anne around the corner, laptop in hand. “Ah Jess, are you busy now? Have you got a minute to show me how to get that heading on my blog? How do I put this Clustr Map in? Have you seen this?!” Anne and I have lovely little chats over our laptops and her enthusiasm and fascination with all this Web 2.0 is very inspiring too. She is so good at getting the kids involved and when looking at their work can often be heard to say ‘Oh, isn’t that precious?!’

Anne leaves her glasses everywhere and ends up in live webcast conversations without realising what she’s done, but she is an absolutely brilliant teacher who I learn a lot from every week. Thanks for this award Anne. You inspire me too.

So now it is my turn to pass on this little award. Here is how it all works:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Let the people you tagged know what you tagged them!

4. Optional: proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post you wrote. (Here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

In addition, there is a note: “Please remember to tag blogs with real merits i.e. relative content and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!”

So, without further ado - 5 Blogs that make me think:

Betchablog - Chris Betcher’s blog is one of the first I subscribed to. His podcast Virtual Staffroom is also one of the first podcasts I listened to when I started getting into all this Web 2.0 madness about 18 months ago. Chris has been teaching and playing around with geeky stuff for years and is totally willing to share what he knows. He’s got great ideas and enthusiasm and I like reading the mix of things he writes about on his blog.

The Open Classroom - Jo McLeay writes really thoughtful blog posts on teaching and using Web 2.0 with her students. She is obviously very experienced and very passionate about what she does and I really value her opinions and thoughts.

Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom - Joe Dale is incredible! The amount of things this man manages to blog about is great. He has lots of resources and ideas on his blog which always get me thinking about what to try next.

Always Learning - Kim Cofino is an expat teaching living in Bangkok. She’s a 21st Century Literacy Specialist and write really great posts about she uses new tools with her students as well as step-by-step posts on how you can do it yourself. She’s always got me thinking about new projects to start!

Langwitches - Silvia Tolisano’s blog was another one of the very first blogs I started reading. I was totally inspired by the things she was doing and her blog is probably one of the reasons I started my technoLOTE blog.

Thank you to all of these thoughtful thinking bloggers! You all deserve the

Image is ‘Be Yourself’ by fotologic

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2 Responses to “Those That Make Me Think (The Thinking Blogger Award)”

murcha on February 25th, 2008 2:34 am

Thank you Jess for your ‘kind’words and hope you will still help me with what I want to do on my laptop and with the students. Will look up you blog site awards as some are new to me but some of them are my favourites as well.
Langwitches » Blog Archive » The Thinking Blogger Award on March 28th, 2008 1:54 pm

[...] McCulloch from The Rise of Reflection Blog has tagged me for The Thinking Blogger Award. Thank you Jess, for taking the time to write a [...]