BP3_2010041_Google Reader

1. http://hickstro.org/
I subscribed to Digital Writing, Digital Teaching: Integrating New Literacies into the Teaching of Writing, which is a Wordpress blog written by Troy Hicks, a professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. His CV, updated last December, states his objective: “To engage in and study the teaching and learning writing—especially in digital environments—focusing on pre-service teacher education and professional development for in-service teachers” (Hicks, 2009, p. 1). As a teacher in this Master’s program, I am already benefiting from my new friend’s blog posts. His skills and interests that he shares can serve as a valuable reference for me professionally as a student and as a teacher developing her skills in education via technology.

2. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
I love reading this blog! The author does an amazing job with identifying those gems on the internet on sites like TED. Richard Byrne is a teacher. He takes the time to carefully select those articles, videos, websites, etc. that would be most useful to his 19,000+ readers, mostly educators. It saves me time searching for information about technology in education. Although I also subscribed to TED.com I am much more likely to read the updates on this particular blog than spend time searching for videos on TED. His blog is organized well and has links to resources for teachers of all subjects and grade levels.

3. http://instructify.com/
Instructify is another blog that captured my attention. One of the recent posts discusses Web 2.0 tools and brain-based learning strategies. Those are two topics that are quite related to one another and both are heavily discussed in this Master’s program. Like Richard Byrne’s posts, the authors—there are various— of this blog offer great information and links that revolve around making teacher better and improving the overall educational system. The Instructify philosophy is “teach smarter, not harder.”

4. http://carlanderson.blogspot.com/
Carl Anderson, the author of this blog, is an educator and a curriculum and technology specialist. Although he has only a few followers, his posts offer information on free technology tools and he gives weekly tech tips. He also provides title and links to videos such as Confessions of a Converted Lecturer: Eric Mazur. Carl gives short commentaries beside some of the links, which is how this particular video about the converted lecturer caught my eye.

5. http://ilearntechnology.com/
The title of this blog is: “iLearn Technology: An Edublog About Integrating Technology into the Classroom.” That explains it. I do not need to add much more. The primary reason I subscribed to this blog was because of a post I found by clicking on the tag, “Europe.” It led me to an explanation of edu2.0, which in essence creates a virtual classroom. Also Tech Crunch downloads YouTube videos onto your computer so that you can view them in class (this is especially useful if you know in advance that internet will not be available or if YouTube is a blocked site at your workplace, like mine). I was hooked by the discussion of Web 2.0 tools that actually sound simple and useful for the classroom.