EduBlogs+--+Comparison+and+Reflection

EduBlogs -- Comparison and Reflection

=__//**Part 1: Comparison**//__=

I have to admit that I am really not a fan of blogs in general. I find them difficult to navigate. Most of the blogs I have been to, I find that I have trouble finding things that are helpful to me. I will attempt to compare and contrast 3 blogs in this paper.

“Moving At the Speed of Creativity”, Wesley Fryer’s blog, focuses on new things he learns about from conferences that will help teachers in the classroom. He shares new ideas and new software that is available from many popular educational players, such as National Geographic, Google, etc. I have not seen him post any student work, though he is not a teacher. He does, however, comment on how other people re posting student work online using popular technologies such as the iPad, iPhone, etc. The names of each post tell you what it is about though it is a bit hard to navigate in order for me to find a certain topic. Things are not laid out in topic form, but more by date. There really are no categories and it is not very easy to navigate. What is current at the moment is what is at the top of the blog. Each blog has this issue. However, Fryer is a very knowledgeable man. He has very good credentials that I can trust what is on his site. He is both a Google certified educator as well as an Apple distinguished educator. This blog does provide excellent resources, though they are hard to search for and find in his blog. The purpose for the blog is a good one. It is great to commend teachers for using technology in the classroom. It is also a great idea to share neat ideas with teachers of how to use technology in the classroom. I also think that Fryer does a great service by sharing his notes from conferences, etc. from different conferences he attends.

Much of the same is true for the next blog. Unlink Fryer, David Warlick has written many books on learning, literacy, and technology/blogging in the classroom. He is just an educator sharing his personal ideas and observations. While it can be interesting to read, he does not share much that the teacher can use in his or her classroom, in my opinion. The neat thing about this blog is that he does make an educator think. He takes issues going on in our jobs and makes us think. The restaurant story video game idea post was his most recent and very inventive and SO true. It gave me as an educator a lot to think about. One can comment on the blog and there is a link on the side to show blogs with the most comments. This can be helpful to a teacher to see what others are saying about his ideas and if they work in the classroom or not. He also does not post student work or share any really helpful resources, but shares things to think about in the classroom that related to our job. It is an ok blog, but again, it is not my cup of tea. I have very little spare time and if I had to spend it reading blogs, I’d prefer one that gave me things to do in my classroom rather than just random ponderings.

Free Technology 4 Teachers by Richard Byrne is by far my favorite blog out of the three. He offers teachers a wonderful array of free resources. He does not really take the time to tell stories but share things that he finds work in the classrooms. He shares different free websites, software offers, and really brings to the forefront how much out there is valuable and useful for teachers. The best thing about anything he blogs about, it is free to use as an educator, or for anyone else too! These things I find valuable, with the changing times pushing toward digital media and the shrinking budgets of the school districts, we need to be able to adapt but still give the students as much technological exposure as we can. He does not post student work for he does not have students like we do. His topics are somewhat easy to search for, but searching, as usual in blogs I have found, is not the best nor easiest to use.

Works Cited:

Byrne, Richard. "Free Technology for Teachers." //Free Technology for Teachers//. 04 Oct. 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .

Fryer, Wesley. "Wesley Fryer's Blog." //Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Weblog of Wesley Fryer//. Wesley Fryer, 04 Oct. 2011. Web. 04 Oct. 2011. .

Warlick, David. "2¢ Worth." //David Warlick//. 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .

=**//__Part 2: Reflection__//**=

The blog I found to be most helpful was the Steve Spangler Blog, “Making Science Fun.” He is a very knowledgeable person. He provides wonderful resources for teachers, great demos, and ideas for chemistry teachers in the classroom. The search feature is good. I am able to find a demonstration very easily, as long as I search the proper words. I see blog categories at the top of the blog, but I did not find them super helpful.

One of the fabulous things about this blog is the amount of videos he posts. It is really helpful to see the demo in video form. Actually, this blog won an award for the best use of videos from EduBlogs 2008. On the side of the homepage, we have a list of blog topics. This is in place of better categories at the top of the blog. This blog provides just the right amount of information for me. Not too much and not too involved. I would have liked to see more specific information about set-up and the chemistry of the experiment. It would be good to kick things up a notch and go into the molecular chemistry of things.

The one thing that this site also has that many others do not is showing student work. I feel that this is a bit more of a publicity site at times than a site to help and educate teachers. Now, this also depends on your definition of student work. He shows students on his television show assisting him with certain demonstrations. I like that he can have younger students assisting him with his demonstrations, but I’d like to see more of the chemistry behind them. i would also like to see people comment and contribute to this blog. This would be a great place to elarn from each other.

The blog that I found not as helpful was chemistry-blog.com. While this blog may be good for some, it is not very helpful for me. Since I am a chemistry teacher, I am not really interested in much of what is on the blog. This blog is really meant for people in the chemsitry profession; i.e. industry and adult/collegiate education. Many of the posts, while I could follow them, were over my heard. I do enjoy the explanations and the sharing of knowledge though. It pushes me to think outside of the box; it is more like enrichment for me. These are cool things that I can bring up in class for discussion but not really focused on curriculum.

While the categories on the blog are helpful, it is hard to search for things. They only have 3 main contributors. While what they share about are very helpful and interesting, most of it is a bit over my head. They do occasionally post topics related to high school education, but for the most part, it is collegiate level or above. They are very knowledgeable contributors. Using the categories provided, it was a bit hard to search for and find posts that you find relevant.

One aspect of this blog that I really enjoyed was the technology product review. Most recently, they reviewed an iPhone and iPad app for different chemical compounds. This would actually be useful in the high school classroom. He went into great detail about the app, how to get it, and its many uses, both in education and in the chemical industry. this blog has many followers, but very few contributors. Since this blog is not totally educationally focused, there is no illustration of student work. There are no videos on the blog. It is basically postings with some graphics explaining the chemistry behind a reaction every now and then.. They alsp post job openings when relevant. I do like that it is German-based, meaning it reaches everyone throughout the world.

"Chemistry Blog » Chemical Education." //Chemistry Blog//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. . Spangler, Steve. "Steve Spangler's Blog." //Steve Spangler's Blog//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.