Comes the end of the academic school year for us in Australia – and it’s the perfect time for us to have a celebration – the Edublog Awards!!

I love that educators – on the ground – are ready to share resources and knowledge with me via the intrawebs and the  metaverse.  Doesn’t matter which way I look at it, blogging, collaboration spaces, 3D worlds, and more are transforming my professional learning.

Each day I have the chance  to laugh a little, muse a little, cogitate some more, and look for opportunities to help someone, somewhere, sometime in learning, teaching, and information services.

So without further ado – My nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are:

Best Individual Blog : John Connell – The Blog ::: Still my all-time favourite for covering innovation and emerging technologies blended with a global perspective on culture, society and the politics of change.

Best Individual Tweeter: Elaine Talbert::: @etalbert for her wonderful finds and  2.0 slideshare alerts.

Best Group Blog: Pandia Search Engine News ::: If you are serious about knowing what is going on in the online world of search (and you should be!) then the work of  Per and Susanne Koch and team,  from their base in Norway, makes essential reading. Check out their fabulous Pandia Search Central too!.

Best New Blog (to me): Kelli’s Blog ::: Kelli strikes a cord with me, an English teacher of excellence who shares on her blog. Wish I could teach English with your inspiration!

Best Resource Sharing Blog: Design 4 Learning ::: Expect the unexpected from here to the metaverse from my friend and co-author Dean Groom. Dean will never let you get into a rut!

Most Influential Blog Post:  An Operating System for the Mind :::  Stephen Downes  so eloquently explained that an education based strictly and solely in facts is insufficient, and drives home what 21st century learning is really about.

Best Teacher Blog:  Darcy Moore’s Blog ::: He’s  a genuine leader among the all-to -few school executives who really ‘gets it’!

Best Librarian/Library Blog: Tame the Web::: Michael Stephens has been telling it as it should be for  libraries for more years than I care to count!  Dean and I are proud that Michael wrote the Forward to our upcoming publication (ACER Pubications promises 2010 now!).

Best Educational Tech Support Blog : New Technology for Teachers::: With the information here, you’ve got a ready-made source of tools and ideas for your learning and teaching adventure!

Best E-Learning/ Corporate Education Blog ::: Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day, from Jane Hart at the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies,  is an essential in your RSS reads.

Best Educational Wiki: Educational Origami ::: Andrew Churches not only shares resources, but dreams up new approaches, frameworks, models and more which we just have to adopt!

Best Educational Use of a Virtual World: – Angela A Thomas ::: Ange continues to demonstrate the outstanding possibilities that virtual worlds can provide us.  If you want to know more, check out the  Virtual Macbeth video and the  Virtual Macbeth Wiki.

Lifetime Achievement: Karl Fish, The Fischbowl ::: Karl generously shares best practices and creates conversations that are inspiring, compelling, and influential. I have been honoured to participate online in some of his class projects at Arapahoe High School and have been inspired by  the impact he is having right there in the classroom and in the kids minds.

There are many more fabulous folks that I could nominate!   Luckily between us all we seem to bag the best!

The best part of the Edublog awards are discovering new things and sharing them with each other. Here are my nominations from 2008.  A few people are still on the top of my nominations list 🙂

P.S. For all those (crazy?)  kind folk who took the time to nominate Heyjude. What can I say – WOW! Now I wish I’d found the time to do more for you!