Educator Blogs

 

Backyard Learning is a wonderful blog that is written by a licensed middle school science teacher who shares teaching ideas through her own experiences.  I am a very visual person and am drawn to this page because of the beautiful photographs.  The author uses all of her own pictures rather that downloading stock photos from the internet.  She features Nature Photo Friday and shares some breathtaking shots to illustrate outdoor adventures they have encountered each week.

Along with the beautiful illustrations, she includes lesson plans to use these lessons with your class and even shares a few printable resources.  I love the fact that the focus is hands-on experience rather than a high-tech virtual experience.  I think this is a fantastic integration of educational technology and hands-on science.  It is nice to step back from the screen and the keyboard and get hands dirty sometimes.  I can’t wait to see where future adventures will lead.

Librarian Blogs

A Media Specialist’s Guide To The Internet is intended to do exactly what the title suggests:  provide a guide for teacher librarians to make the most of the internet for their classrooms and libraries.  The left sidebar provides an alphabetical index of links by topic.  Blogposts in the body include video tutorials on various educational apps, lesson plans and links to content-specific resources that can help guide a media teacher’s lesson planning.  The right sidebar provides links to additional helpful sites such as a free e-books site, book recommendations for reluctant readers, twitter comments feed, and a showcase of awards that the page has received.

This page provides a wealth of information without being visually overwhelming.  I definitely see myself using this blog a resource for my lesson planning.

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