Because They Wanted to Connect: My Tribe and the Edublog Awards

"And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect." -Seth Godin


Voting is now open for the 2010 Edublog Awards, a yearly opportunity to acknowledge the blogging and tweeting efforts of educators who choose to connect and share online.

The "Best librarian / library blog" category is a roll call of some (but by no means all) of the best and brightest in my field. I am happy to note, however, that teacher/librarians, and their sites, appear under a number of other headings:

• best individual blogs (Never Ending Search, Not So Distant Future)
  
• best individual tweeter (buffyjhamilton, dmcordell, shannonmmiller, wawoodworth)
  
• most influential tweet series (#tlchat)
• best group blog (Libraries and Transliteracy)
• best new blog (Eliterate Librarian, Libraries and Transliteracy)
• best resource sharing blog (Librarian in Black)
• most influential blog post - Joyce Valenza’s Things I think teacher librarians should unlearn (20 & counting)
• best school administrator blog (Doug Johnson)
  
• best educational support blog (Cathy Nelson)
• best educational use of video/visual (Gwyneth Jones)
• best educational wiki (TL Virtual Cafe, Copyright-Friendly, MHMS Tech Wiki, New Tools Workshop, School Library Websites Wiki, The UDL Tech Toolkit, WebTools4u2use, World of Warcraft in School)
• best educational use of a social network (Helene Blowers, 23 Things)
  
• best educational use of a virtual world (ISTE-SIGMS)
• lifetime achievement (cybraryman1, Doug Johnson, Joyce Valenza)

I believe that these nominations reflect a necessary broadening of our profession's vision and a continuing commitment to explore new ways to better serve our students and staff members.

Vote for excellence, not for job titles, but be proud of those nominees who represent TLs in this very public forum.

Good luck to my friends and colleagues: Buffy, Carolyn, Cathy, Doug, Gwyneth, Joyce, Shannon, and all the rest of our Tribe.



"There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas Edison




P.S. I've been nominated for Best Individual Tweeter. If you feel it's warranted, I'd appreciate your vote!





"The Group" by Grzegorz Łobiński
Badge from the 2o1o Edublog Awards site