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blog [n.]
A simple definition of a Blog is : it’s a journal … but on a web page. The author, or blogger writes posts [this is a post] every so often, which readers can comment on [you could add a comment to this post]. With comments added to the bottom of the post, it turns into a conversation. A post may contain hyperlinks to other blogs or websites, and can also include photos and video … . Blogs are social because they create a conversation between the blogger and readers of the blog. They are authentic - a real person using their real voice - and some blogs have a greater reach than some newspapers do. It’s a way to communicate with other people.
What’s a Blog ? - Jeffrey Roos, The World Wide What ?
There are blogs on almost every imaginable topic, from bloggers of all kinds. Some are of a personal nature, some are on professional topics. We have concentrated on the second.
The blogs are in two main groups - educational and general. Within each we have divided into Australian and International.
There is also a section on building your own blog and places where you can have a blog hosted for Free.
Small collections of blogs are also found on specific topic pages.
As with all material available from the internet, you should check the source carefully. You should be happy to have an answer
from an expert, but not as confident with information from someone without standing in the area. We have tried to make this a listing which
follows this principle.
Take care when accessing a blog to ensure they are suitable and appropriate for the person
using them !
For an article on The History of Blogging, visit this Webopedia site.
Education Blogs
Australian
Individual Sites
- Art Re-Source
‘This contemporary Visual Art Blog is in response to some of the frustration I felt as a student and then later as an artist, finding information on how to do things, who does things, and how it all comes together. Check out the info and let me know if there are things I should add or alter … Remember it’s a re-source so the more value that goes into it the better !’ - Beerkens’ Blog
‘Higher Education, Science & Innovation from a Global Perspective’. - CourierMail
Education blog from the major Queensland newspaper, based in Brisbane. - Dan’s Blog
‘What did you do at school today ?’ Dan Haesler. - Education Watch International
‘Comments from Australia on the mostly parlous state of modern education by John J. Ray’. - EduResources Weblog
[Higher Education Resources Online]
‘This weblog focuses on locating, evaluating, discussing, and providing guidelines to instructional resources for faculty and students in higher education. The emphasis is on Free, shared, HE resources’. - Fiction Focus
- Grammar Gang
‘From the University of South Australia and Purdue University’. - Homeschool Australia
A blog on all things Homeschool from Beverley Paine. -
iHistory
‘iHistory combines local history with mobile technology. This is also a place for Dave Fagg’s musings on history teaching in general’. - JayGee Library Log
Exploring emerging technologies. News, commentary, links, archive, more. - Maralyn Parker
‘Maralyn is an award-winning education columnist, author and former teacher, who has worked in primary and secondary schools in NSW Australia, Africa and England’ - MathsClass
‘MathsClass is about teaching and learning in a maths classroom’. An Australian Teacher’s blog where you can also have your say and share ideas. - MathsPig
‘This blog is about maths. It’s about FUN maths, MEDIA maths and especially DUMB maths. Anyone can tackle these problems. You don’t have to understand squiggly, complex equations scribbled all over a black or a whiteboard. This blog simply encourages clear thinking with numbers’. - Teaching Challenges
‘Reflections on teaching, innovative practices and the implementation of learning technologies in the classroom’. - The Teacher Toolbox
Has to be seen to be believed. Constantly updated and changing, with valuable resources for a wide range of educators. - TLNewsau
‘Bits and Pieces of Interest to Teacher Librarians in Australia. Listed here are news items and resources that inform my professional learning journey … they may be of use to colleagues’.
Link Portals
- Directory of Australian Edubloggers
‘This site is a listing of all known Australian educators who have blogs and/or podcasts. Currently there are 63 [listed]’. - Education Blogs in All States
Annotated listing of education blogs.
International
Individual Sites
- Annoyed Librarian
‘The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free’. - Bambinis
Has articles including parenting assistance and other skill information, as well as an extensive range of activities for children listed in categories from Applique to Tongue Twisters. - Bits
‘Bits is a multi-author weblog that provides instructors with teaching ideas from leading scholars, authors and editors’. - Britannica Blog - Education
All matters educational from the smallest to largest topics. Even have an RSS Feed. - DegreeGo Blog
‘News About Online Education, Distance Learning Degrees, Online Colleges and Universities’. - EducationState
‘EducationState is an international group of educationalists based mainly in the UK. Our primary goal is to draw public attention to what educational professionals really think : of their workplaces, of government policy and of the wider issues that affect their daily lives’. - Eduwonkette
‘Through the lens of social science, eduwonkette takes a serious, if sometimes irreverent, look at some of the most contentious education policy debates’. - History According to Bob
‘Professor Bob Packett has been teaching history for thirty-three years. Join us for a Podcast Journey through History. Professor Bob tells fascinating stories of historical people, places, and customs’. - Inside Higher Ed
‘Inside Higher Ed is the online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education. Whether you’re an adjunct or a vice president, a grad student or an eminence grise, we’ve got what you need to thrive in your job or find a better one : breaking news and feature stories, provocative daily commentary, areas for comment on every article, practical career columns, and a powerful suite of tools to help higher education professionals get jobs and colleges identify and hire employees’. - Langwitches Blog
‘Langwitches’ Blog contains thoughts, ideas and projects on my journey as a Technology Integration Facilitator and 21st Century Learning Specialist’. - Learn a Language on YouTube
‘Apart from [the] selected YouTube videos, I am recommending sites with a great deal of language activities such as Free listening materials, grammar online tutorials, reading handouts, etc. Most are free of charge, some not’. Presently covers Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese. - Misterteacher.com
‘Helping Elementary & Middle School teachers integrate technologies like blogs, podcasts, digital cameras, and more. More and more though, I think I just want to write about education and teaching strategies in general’. - Once A Teacher
‘My blog is a commentary on professional development in education. It focuses on issues related to technology based professional development, teacher participation in professional development and trends in PD’. - OxfordWords Blog
‘Here you’ll find articles about words, language, and dictionaries, plus English grammar and usage tips, interactive features, games, competitions, and more’. - Parenting the Gifted
‘Sarah Robbins is a gifted educator and speaker with a Masters in Education for Curriculum and Instruction. She has a Gifted Endorsement, as well as an Early Childhood Endorsement’. - Schools Blog
‘News and updates for schools from within and around Microsoft’. From the UK. - Teacher Talk
EFL Classroom 2.0. ‘When 1 teaches, 2 learn’. - Tellio : Reflections of Mid-Career Teacher
[We Teach Ourselves]
Besides the blog there are shared items [scroll down, left]. Extensive archive. - The Clever Sheep
‘As a teacher, learner, consultant, speaker and collaborator, I’m on the lookout for opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations with others who see themselves as learners. Professional development, project based learning and Creative Commons are topics that are always on my radar’. - This Week in Education
[Alexander Russo]
Includes original and other selected commentary. - Welcome to NCS-Tech !
[Searching the web, blogosphere, listservs and the twitterverse for the best K-8 EDTECH resources, because … “You can’t spell TEACH without T-E-C-H !”]
Search archives using various methods, read the latest news and follow recommendations for some really top results.
Link Portals
- 100 Best Library Blogs For Suckers
- BlogScholar
Find scholars in areas listed on the right, check a directory, use the storyfinder, latest news, archive, more. - Edublogs Awards
‘Welcome to the home of the Edublogs Awards - the annual event where the best education blogs of the year are decided by, well, you !’ For information about the 2010 Award Winners go to this site. - Edublogs TV
‘Welcome to Edublogs.tv - the video hosting site dedicated to education. Join Now’. - Education Blog List
‘This list only contains blogs with a Technorati rank greater than 50’. Personal blogs to blogs on specific topics. - Education Week
Numerous blogs on topics from Teacher Beat to School Law, LeaderTalk to Curriculum matters. Essentially US based. - Educator Blogs - Answers.com
‘The Answers.com Blogger Directory includes blogs dedicated to education, language and technology in the classroom. Below is a list of relevant blogs with original thoughts and creative ideas for growth of technology in the classroom. Browse for new lesson plan ideas, thought-provoking opinions and integral issues pertaining to education and technology today’. - Library Weblogs
Provides a listing of library oriented weblogs in country directories. More than a dozen are listed for Australia. - Live Mocha
[Education Blog List]
A ranked collection of more than 100 blogs with many emphases. - Podagogy
[Where Podcasting Meets Teaching & Learning]
Though it talks about podcasting, this is actually a blog. Check the Blog Roll at the upper right as well. US Based. - TeacherLingo
‘An educational community of teacher blogs, lesson plans and other teacher resources’. Select from blogs, tweets and other resources. - Teacher Voices
Multiple categories and multiple bloggers. - The Top 21 Language Bloggers on the Web
While done in 2008, good blogs never disappear. -
Top 100 Education Blogs [OEDb]
‘Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the great education blogs out there. Chances are you may have favourites that are not included here. Also note that this list is not ranked but rather is ordered alphabetically within each topic’.
Other Blogs
Australian
Individual Sites
- Cuisine.com.au
Quality information, top chefs, information from others, recipes and more. - Diary of an Average Australian
The blog of an ‘everyday’ bloke. - Entertainment [Undercover]
Covers all areas of entertainment from books to media. From the ABC. - Matilda
‘ … an answer came directed in a writing unexpected’. An Australian literature website. - Regional Living Australia
‘Information about work, life and play in Regional Australia’. - Tim Kastelle - Networks & Innovation
‘The broad issue that I am interested in is this : what is the impact of innovation on economic growth ?’. Award winning site.
Link Portals
- Exploring Australian Blogs
From The Australian comes this directory of blogs covering dozens of areas. - SMH Blog Central
Blogs from The Sydney Morning Herald covering everything from world news to home & garden, travel and life & leisure. - The Australian, Blogs
Blogs on all aspects of Australian life and viewpoints from the opinion writers at The Australian. - The Australian Index
‘Exploring Australian Blogs’. Search by title or subject. Read interesting posts from sites, check recently added blogs, stories linked to blogs and more. - The World’s Best Blogs
Fascinating that this was done in 2003 [Sydney Morning Herald writer] and many of the blogs still exist ! Worth it to see what causes their longevity.
International
Individual Sites
- All about Microsoft
‘An unblinking eye on Microsoft [by Mary Jo Foley]’. If you want to know, this is the place to go. - Britannica Blog
‘Where Ideas Matter’. Many categories covered. - Ev’s Tech Thought of the Day
‘Tech tips, hints, and general musings. PHP, Perl, Mysql, Oracle, Javascript, AJAX, JSON, Linux, Mac OSX’. -
Crooked Timber
‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made’. - Green Living
‘A blog dedicated to all aspects of green living. Here you’ll find green tips, news, product reviews and commentary. Learn how to green up your life !’ - Health News Blog
‘Current health news and resources’. - Iraq the Model
‘New points of view about the future of Iraq’ by Iraquis. - Mind Hacks
‘Neuroscience and psychology tricks to find out what’s going on inside your brain’. - Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog
Many categories, links to projects and fascinating inclusions. - Panda’s Thumb
Everything related to evolution. Quality, knowledgeable contributors. Archive, forum, wall, sims, links. - Parenting Teens
‘The content contained on this site is offered to the public as information, experiences, and the perspectives of other parents. ParentingTeens.com does not claim to offer any kind of medical or therapeutic advice or recommendations’. - Real Climate
‘Climate science from climate scientists’. Data Sources, RC Wiki, contributors, index, archive, more. - Savage Minds
‘Savage Minds is a collective web log devoted to both bringing anthropology to a wider audience as well as providing an online forum for discussing the latest developments in the field. We are a group of Ph.D. students and professors teaching and studying anthropology and are excited to share it with you’. - Famous Scientists - Blog
‘A science news blog that functions to serve fresh news on the latest in science and technology, as well as up-to-the-minute buzz and updates about current events related to science’. -
ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media
‘Now one of the most widely read and respected blogs in the world’. - ScienceNOW
‘Your home for ScienceNOW daily news briefs, delivered fresh every weekday from Science Magazine’s award-winning team of journalists, and your gateway to other items of news interest on the Science sites’. - Scot’s Newsletter Blog
‘Operating systems. Broadband. Issues. Reviews … tech info you can use’. - Short Sharp Science
A fascinating blog from New Scientist. - Slashdot
‘News for Nerds. Stuff that matters’.Everything you want to know about tech news and more. - The Map Room
‘The Map Room is a blog that points to maps, map collections, map-related resources, and material about maps on the web. Anything that fits under that rubric, from medieval mappæ mundi to satellite imagery, and from topo maps to Tolkien, is fair game’. - The Monkey Cage
‘The mission of this blog is described in our inaugural post. And, technically, an orangutan is an ape, not a monkey. Named 2010 Blog of the Year by The Week’. Mostly in the political arena. - The Official Google Blog
‘Insights from Googlers into our products, technology and the Google culture’. - Thoughts On Economics
‘The emphasis on this blog, [] is mainly critical of neoclassical and mainstream economics. I have been alternating numerical counter-examples with less mathematical posts. In any case, I have been documenting demonstrations of errors in mainstream economics. My chief inspiration here is the Cambridge-Italian economist Piero Sraff’. Highly regarded. - Zenpundit.com
‘Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security, strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits’. Highly regarded. - The Unofficial Apple Weblog [TUAW]
Covers truth, rumours and more about everything Apple.
Link Portals
- 100 Blogs We Love
‘Here are our favourite stops in the blogosphere, covering everything from high tech to low comedy and all manner of pursuits in between. By the Editors of PC World’. Lifestyle. personalities, technology, commentary and other areas. - 20 Essential Blog Directories
[To Submit Your Blog To]
Provides a background then lists chosen sites with reasons why they should be considered. Several are already included here. - Best of the Web Blogs
Search from Arts to Sports. 12 major directories. Considered among the best of the directories. - BlogCatalog
‘Blog Catalog is the premiere social blog directory on the internet. Whether you’re looking to promote your own blog or find blogs on various topics, this site is for you’. - Blog Directory
‘Search in our blog directory for any blog you want to find. You can search through directory categories or through search box’. Not the biggest but has different areas. - Blogger’s Choice Awards
‘The most popular user-generated blog voting site on the planet !’ Multiple categories including that of Education.
Now beingmade over
. You can sign up to be notified when this is completed and the Education category becomes available again. - Blogging Fusion
Directories of blogs but also articles, photographic blogs, popular blog tags and statistics for site usage, blog usage and more. -
Blog Nation : The Internet’s Fastest Growing Community of Blog Directories
‘A comprehensive network of blog directories that seeks to give recognition and viewership to the millions of fantastic blogs currently on the Internet’. - BlogTopList - Academics
Access all the list [several hundred] or select specific aspects, many academic, other in related areas. From various countries, some in other languages. - Blog Universe
[Blog, Podcast and Video Blog Directory]
Directories from Arts to Video Blogs.
Some sections need specific monitoring for younger people. - Chemical Blogs
‘The first in history chemical blogging platform. Chemical blogs are right for you if you want to target your blog to the chemical community’. - EatonWeb Blog Directory
‘As the oldest blog directory on the web, Eatonweb is the perfect place to establish your blog’s online authority. But what really sets EatonWeb apart is the way we measure and display the importance of blogs in our directory. Each blog receives three rankings : strength, momentum and overall’. Multiple, expandable directories including Education [Eatonweb]. - The Academic Blog Portal
‘Brad DeLong has described the academic blogosphere as a kind of Invisible College - this site is supposed to help make the College a little more visible to itself and its readers. It is a work in progress and will remain that way’.
Creating a Blog
- Bloglines
‘Create a personal Bloglines page loaded with the freshest news about the things you love’. Subscribe for Free. - Blogs in Education
‘I continue my investigation into blogging, the power and purpose in the classroom. To introduce this to our teachers I created two great activities that introduce blogs. If you would like my activities, send me an email, and I will send them to you in Word [meg@techteachers.com]’. - Blogs in Education [DET WA]
‘Blogs provide a communication space that teachers can utilise with students whenever there is a curriculum need to develop writing, share ideas and reflect on work being undertaken in the classroom. From an education perspective the availability and ease of use of blogging software makes creating blogs a viable classroom activity and a means for teachers to communicate with other teachers’. Offers advice, applications, microblogs - Blogs in Plain English
‘A video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal’. - Blog Tips to Help You
Information from ProBlogger. A series of articles addressing specific topics. - Edublogs
Provides space, advice and much more. ‘Edublogs hosts hundreds of thousands of blogs for teachers, students, researchers, professors, librarians, administrators and anyone and everyone else involved in education’. - Express yourself. Start a blog
All the details from WordPress. - Five Useful Blog Editors
‘All of the blog editors listed [below] require a simple initial setup so it knows where to post to, but after that it’s just a matter of typing your post, pressing publish and off you go’. - Me.edu.au
Posting your first blog entry. ‘Blogs are a great way of sharing your teaching resources, ideas and thoughts. Starting a blog on me.edu.au is easy. This short video takes you step-by-step through the process’. -
Teaching With Blogs - ReadWriteThink
‘This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing blogs in the classroom, the process of writing regular posts, or entries, that are published online’. Covers Research basis, strategy and resources. - Technorati
The home of information about everything to do with blogs, from searching [search for Education and you get 550 000+ links] to data and information of every imaginable kind.