Now, we VOTE! Only a few more days! #eddies11

The Edublog Awards are in FULL SWING! But there’s only a limited time to vote, and we need to make sure early childhood educators are well-represented. Last week I posted my list of nominations and Early Childhood Investigations’ nominations (they are slightly different) for the Edublog Awards. Now, the voting is open! From now until December 13, you can vote for a winner in every category one time a day.

We hope you will vote for our nominees and for Early Childhood Investigations (which was listed as Early Childhood Webinars) in the Best Open PD/Unconference/Webinar category.

Let’s represent! Help us ensure that early childhood educators are among the Eddie winners this year, and vote every day!

My Picks for The 2011 Edublog Awards #Eddies11

If you know me, you know I love technology. I thrive on social media. And, most of all, I am passionate about the intersection of early childhood education and social media. Technology makes it easy for me to learn more about the field and connect with people I might never have otherwise known and learn from ECE leaders with a simple click or two.. I can also broadcast what I learn to thousands of others in our field with just a little bit of initiative and know how. And, there is so much to share! That’s why I’ve  nominated a few of the best resources for Edublog Awards this year.  Hopefully, you will do the same. Unfortunately, there are only a few more days in the competition, but it’s never too late! Voting ends December 2, 2011! HURRY!

Since 2005, Edublogs has been hosting blogs and providing custom blogging platforms to teachers, school districts and  students, and the folks that operate the platform have a yearly competition to recognize the best resources as nominated by users. The awards are presented the resources that receive the most votes. Early education is underrepresented, mostly because our field has taken a bit more time to embrace social media and the Internet as sources for professional development. I think we’ve arrived now, so it’s time for us to collectively nominate and vote for the resources we think are most valuable. We’re going to have to do a lot of voting, because we, collectively, are a fraction of the overall field of education.

I nominated many outstanding early childhood educators on the Early Childhood Investigations Blog, but because it’s so important to cast nominations often and because I left out some important people, I’m casting again, here on my personal blog.

Fran Simon’s Edublog Award choices:

* Best Individual Blog: Dr. Michele Borba’s Reality Check

* Best twitter hashtag : #earlyed

* Best individual Tweeter: Karen Nemeth @KarenNemethEDM

* Best group blog: Early Ed Watch by New America Foundation:
http://earlyed.newamerica.net/blogmain

* Best educational use of a social network: Early Childhood Education, Child Care, and CCR&R Professionals Forum, Hosted by Adrienne C. Barr

* Best teacher blog: The Grass Stain Guru, by Bethe Almeras

* Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast: Bam! Radio Network

* Lifetime achievement: Ellen Galinsky- Ellen blogs everywhere and has been for a long time. Check her out:
On Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-galinsky
On Mind in The Making: http://mindinthemaking.org/
On MomsRising: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/author/Ellen-Galinsky/
On HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/05/learning_to_taking_on_challeng.html
On Families and Work Institute http://familiesandwork.org/blog/
And, so many other blogs… to many to mention! You go, Ellen!

Make your choices! It’s easy to nominate… Just follow the directions on the Edublog Awards page!