And the Winners of the 2006 Edublog Awards are:

Best Audio and/or Visual Blog:

absolutely intercultural!
Anne Fox (Denmark), Laurent Borgmann (Germany)

It was at a project meeting in Spain in March that Laurent mooted the idea of a podcast and within a month we were up and running. Laurent Borgmann and I have worked on several European projects together. Common to these is that they are usually about inter-cultural communication and explore the use of new media to foster cross-cultural understanding. The podcast adds a dynamic dimension to many of these projects as well as reaching out to a much wider audience

Doing the podcast gives me a great excuse to get in touch with an amazing array of people whom I would not otherwise be in contact with and it has been really interesting to hear all these different points of view.

Winning the award is a tribute to Laurent’s dynamism in getting the podcast started and to Karsten Kneese who has ensured that the technical side runs smoothly as well as being an important contributor. The award will spur us to continue and find ever more innovative ways of interacting with our audience. Thanks so much to those who nominated us as well as those who voted for us. We feel very honoured to be in such august company.

Best Group Blog:

Polar Science 2006
YES I Can! Science team, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Diane Hammond, Susan Stiff, and Dr. Tom Stiff (Canada)

Best Individual Blog:

Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog
Christopher D. Sessums (USA)

I feel considerably honored to receive this award. I want to thank all of you who read, write, and contribute to the dialog that makes this edublogger community so meaningful. The Internet is about people, not technology, and I am deeply thankful for your support.

You can read Christopher’s thank you post over at his site.

Most Influential Post, Resource or Presentation:

K12 Online Conference 2006
Darren Kuropatwa (Canada), Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (USA), Wes Fryer (USA)

Best Library/ Librarian Blog:

Hey Jude
Judy O’Connell (Australia)

Best Newcomer: (joint winners)

Ed Tech Journeys
Pete Reilly (USA)

tilt!
Paz Peña (Chile)

Pete Reilly writes:

I am extremely honored to win the Best Newcomer award and to be sharing it with Paz Pena the talented blogger from Chile.

I thought long and hard before committing to starting a blog. It is so crowded out there. I wondered if I had anything meaningful to contribute. I used Will Richardson’s blogroll to find out what was being written and to familiarize myself with the “neighborhood”. After some time, I realized that there was a place for me to contribute.

Ed Tech Journeys looks at educational technology and educational transformation from the human point of view. It is here, in the human domain, that so many of our challenges lie. It is my hope that my voice, in concert with voices around the world will help us along on our individual journeys, for in them are the seeds of possibility.

Thank you to the educational blog community for finding my blog, and thus finding me. It is our mutual commitment to learning that gives me hope for the future.

Paz Peña writes:

I’m really honored for this award shared with Pete Reilly. When you work as an independent researcher, it’s difficult to appreciate if your work is valued in the community. This award it’s a great recognition for my research and a huge responsibility with the educational blog community. Thanks!

Best Research Paper:

Nancy White: Blogs and Community
Nancy White (USA)

At a moment when Time Magazine declares “You” the person of the year (all of us who create and share online) it seems perfect to be able to thank “You” for this award. As we expose our thinking to each other online, as we learn together, we enrich each other in ways that truly is amazing. Thank you for listening, for responding, for posting, for thinking out loud with me. Special thanks to all of the other winners, who are in my “inspiration pool.”

You can read Nancy’s ‘thank you post’ over at her site.

Best Teacher Blog:

Have Fun with English! 2
Teresa Almeida d’Eça (Portugal)

Winning “Best Teacher Blog 2006” with “Have Fun with English! 2” was totally unexpected, but a real thrill and a very special honor. I consider it a highlight of my long dedication to ICTs, always with great enthusiasm and commitment.

However, the biggest part of the credit goes to my students without whom this blog wouldn’t exist, and to teacher-friends worldwide who have collaborated with us enthusiastically on a regular basis. Congratulations one and all and my sincere “thank you”.

Congratulations also to all the nominees and winners. I’m very honored to have been a part of such a distinguished group of peers.

And congratulations to Josie Fraser and her team on a job very well done.

Finally, I would like to second Nancy White when she says “At a moment when Time Magazine declares “You” the person of the year (all of us who create and share online) it seems perfect to be able to thank “You” for this award.”

My very sincere “thank you” also to all those who voted for “Have Fun with English! 2”, because you felt that we deserved it.

Merry Christmas and a very happy 2007, everyone!

Best Undergraduate Blog:

CILASS Student Blog
University of Sheffield Student Ambassadors of the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning In the Arts and Social Sciences (England)

Tim Fiennes, student co-ordinator, writes:

It’s a fantastic honour and a privilege for the Student Ambassador Network (SAN) of the Centre of Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS) to have been awarded an Edublog Award for the Best Undergraduate Blog in 2006. It is a testament to the commitment that the students have to shaping how learning and teaching is conducted in the future. This exciting new medium for communicating and disseminating information couldn’t be more relevant to approach to learning that the SAN is trying to promote – the use of technology, discussion of ideas and accessibility to the wider community.

We would like to thank everyone who voted for the blog and to encourage surfers (and bloggers!) to log on and take a look at what we are doing.

Sabine Little, Learning Development and Research Associate (Networked Learning), writes:

I’d just like to add my thanks to whoever nominated us, and to the vote of trust above all – the blog is still in its infancy, but it has given everybody who is a part of it a great surge of enthusiasm and belief in the power of and interest in educational blogging. Tracking the stats over the past couple of weeks, it was great to see how the blog gathered momentum, and the Edublog Awards themselves did a great deal to help us promote the blog and the idea behind it – students taking the initiative and discussing their own learning, so ‘thank you’ to everybody who’s helped us achieve our goal.

Best Wiki:

Flat Classroom Project
Vicki Davis (USA), Julie Lindsay (Bangladesh)

Vicki Davis & Julie Lindsay write:

The world is indeed flat as are our classrooms. We truly believe that we taught lifetime lessons within a short two and a half week project. Our students entered the projects as kids and are now using terms like “professional” and “collaborative” to talk about who they are. Working through the project requirements has made them more aware of the meaning of connectivity and learning and has highlighted the sense of responsibility that we all have to be collaborators on the path to knowledge. This sort of project indeed serves as a landmark and a notice to all teachers that they can now connect with other teachers via their blogs to find curriculular commonalities and create collaborative learning environments that can be meaningful and fair to their students. This is truly the greatest project that each of us have participated in and we look forward to doing more together and with other classrooms around the world. Thank you for recognizing us and the amazing students who have truly created the content on this amazing wiki. Thank you for this recognition!

Edublog Star Award (Convenors choice):

Duck Diaries
Barbara Cohen (USA)

Barbara Cohen writes:

I am thrilled and delighted to accept this exciting award on behalf of the students, faculty and parents at Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera, CA. The Duck Diaries blog was the end result of one of those serendipitous “teachable moments” that educators always dream about, and we had a great time putting it together. I had been looking for a way to introduce blogging to our lower school students and teachers, and when Daisy the Duck decided to lay an egg on our school playground, we seized the opportunity to write, reflect and share the story. Our school’s website boasts that “our unique location allows us to use areas of our campus as outdoor classrooms and to offer students an environmental education that is integrated into the curriculum,” and the blog allowed us to provide others with a glimpse of what this actually looks and feels like for our students. After the resounding success of the Duck Diaries, we will continue to explore new ways to use blogs in the early elementary classroom.