The Edublog Awards

It has been almost two weeks since we went live with this year’s Edublog Awards and we thought you might be interested in what happens behind the scenes while the nominations are flooding in…

And more importantly get some tips on making sure your nominations count!

Each day we work through your emails to sort your nominations into lists for each category.

This year we’ve changed the process slightly and are using a Google Document so we can:

1. Publish a spreadsheet with all of shortlisted nominations for each category including links to the nominating posts (will be available after the Awards ceremony).
2. Feature snippets of comments from nomination posts about why a blog, website or individual was nominated.

So if you would like to explain why you’ve nominated a blog, website or individual we’ll do our best to include this information.

Here’s an example of what it will look like in the published spreadsheets:

This year there are 23 categories and our focus is ensuring the nomination lists are complete so when nominations close we’re ready to start the voting stage.

At this stage most nominations are transferred onto the lists except for those that:

• Obviously don’t fit the category
• Are self nominations
• Haven’t followed the nomination submission process

Once nominations close we comb through the lists to confirm all nominations fit their category and finalize the shortlisting.

Here’s some important tips that’ll make sure your nominations count and make our job easier!

Tip # 1

You can’t nominate your own blog or website…especially in lots of categories….doesn’t work that way

Tip # 2

If category says it is a blog then it means a blog not a Ning, not a Wiki or other.

There are other categories for them such as:

• Best Educational Wiki
• Best use of a social networking service
• Best use of a PLN

A ning isn’t a group blog

Tip # 3

The nomination process is a two step process–miss one of the steps and your nominations don’t count!

The two step are:

1. Write a post on your blog linking to the blogs & sites that you want to nominate
2. Email us the link to your nomination post (submitted via our contact form)

If you’re nominated by someone you might want to check they remembered to send the link to their blog post via our contact form!

And to make sure it is uber clear!

• You can’t just email us links to blogs & sites you want to nominate — you must write a nomination post on a blog or website such as a Ning or Wiki
• Your nomination post must be on a website where we can view your nominations — last time I checked we can’t see behind locked private sites
• You must email us the link to your nomination post using our contact form

Tip # 4

For the latest up-to-date news on the Edublog Awards:

1. Follow edublogs on Twitter
2. Subscribe to the Edublog Award blog via our RSS Feed or email (add your email address to the email subscription widget in the top right sidebar)
3.  Like Edublogs on Facebook

It has been almost a week since we went live with this year’s Edublog Awards. In that time we have had hundreds of nominations roll in!

It is fun to keep up with them as they come in, and we thought you might enjoy a few tools that will help you discover them as well.

This widgetbox.com widget comprises twitter search and rss feeds which regularly update with Edublog Award buzz from around the web.

Have we seen your nomination post here?

// Get the Edublog Awards widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

Something we will be doing a bit differently this year is that at the end of the awards ceremony, we will publish a spreadsheet with all of the nominations including links to the nominating posts. We will also feature some of the comments bloggers are making when publishing their nomination posts.

This means that if you haven’t yet made a nomination, you might want to try and include a sentence or two detailing why when you do. We hope that sharing this information will make the awards process more rewarding and useful for all.

Happy nominating!

PS
Here are the rss feeds we used in creating the widget in case you want to subscribe to them in your favorite news reader.

• http://blogsearch.google.com.au/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=”edublog+awards”&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
• http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=blog&q=”Edublog+Awards+”&rss=1
• http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=”edublog+awards”

It’s exciting to see the nomination posts being published!

We’ve noticed quite a few bloggers are adding an Award banner or badge to their post.

To make your task easier we thought you would like some Edublog Awards banner and badges for your posts and blog — for those that don’t want to make their own.

Here you go:

Banner (450 pixels wide)

2010 Edublog Award Badge (170 pixels wide)

Nominate me badge (170 pixels wide)

Adding them To A Blog Post is as simple as:

1.  Right clicking on the banner or badge and selecting Save Image As…  to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

2.  Then insert the image into your post by clicking on Add an Image and click on Select image to upload to your blog post.

For the latest up-to-date news on the Edublog Awards:

1. Follow edublogs on Twitter
2. Subscribe to the Edublog Award blog via our RSS Feed or email (add your email address to top right sidebar)
3.  Like Edublogs on Facebook

Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for!

The Edublogs Awards 2010 is now underway.

We’re following the same approach as last two years, namely asking you to:

1. Post your nominations for the different categories on your own blog (or a website)
2. Send us the link to your nomination post via the contact form at the bottom of the Awards homepage

You can find more information on how to nominate on Awards homepage.

And we’ve added few new categories this year based on your feedback such as ….. Best School Administrator blog and Best use of a PLN

Here they are in full, nominations are open from now until Friday 3 December, voting will then be up until Tuesday 14 December and the ceremony will be rocking on Wednesday 15 December!

So go nominate your favourite blogs, twitterers, community sites, videos, podcasts and more… for 2010:

Best individual blog
Best individual tweeter
Best group blog
Best new blog
Best class blog
Best student blog
Best resource sharing blog
Most influential blog post
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
Best teacher blog
Best librarian / library blog
Best School Administrator blog
Best educational tech support blog
Best elearning / corporate education blog
Best educational use of audio
Best educational use of video / visual
Best educational wiki
Best educational podcast
Best educational webinar series
Best educational use of a social networking
Best educational use of a virtual world
Best use of a PLN
Lifetime achievement

To nominate:

1. Post your nominations on your blog, link to them and link to this site
2. Use the form at the bottom of the Awards homepage to send us a link to your nominations

(yes, I put that in there twice just so it was uber clear!)

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments

We’ve had quite a few requests for a link to the recording to the Edublog Awards Ceremony so here you are:

1. The Elluminate recording
2. The Audio version
3. The Chat log

Thanks to Steve Hargadon for organising the recording of the Ceremony!

And how cool are these Award moments?

Arjana Blazic’s Greetings From The World won Best Educational Wiki 2009 with a staggering 711 votes. Arjana, from Croatia, stayed up until 3.30 AM to listen to the results.

It’s so exciting to hear her win made the papers in Croatia with these three articles:

• 3a class IX students. High School won first place in the category of school multimedia poster
• Glogova with the best in the world
• Zagreb students’ Glogova in the fight for the best in the world

Meanwhile Billings Middle School Faculty had a facility party, at 9 PM, while watching the Awards.

It was exciting for all of us to hear their cheering when Billings Middle School Tech Class Blog won Best class Edublog 2009.

And finally how dedicated were the Beeghley Family?

Sarah, who won Best student edublog 2009 for Civil War Sallie, watched the Awards while Sarah was also preforming at her Christmas Concert!

Would love to add more cool moments to this post?  If you have any please let us know by leaving a comment!

The Edublog Awards is a great way of discovering new blogs, cool ideas and resources that can be helpful to our teaching.

And people are currently visiting the nominated sites for exactly this reason!

Trouble is it’s often hard to quickly work out what a site’s about when visiting it for the first time.   This needs to be really obvious for first time readers because they have limited time!

So here’s some tips to make it easier for your first time readers.

Text Widget in Blog Sidebar

A short blurb in a text widget in your blog sidebar is an excellent way of providing a quick overview of what you’re and/or your site is about.

Ideally it should be short, to the point and placed at the top of your blog sidebar where it’s one of the first thing visitors see.

Here’s a few examples of nominated blogs using a Text Widget:

1. Extreme Biology – left hand side bar for Welcome to Extreme Biology
2. Rumford Writers – right hand side bar for Welcome
3. The Web 2.0 Optimist – right hand side bar for About Me

For Edublog and WordPress blogs you’ll need to use HTML for better formating of your text.

Below is the HTML code I use in the text widget on my personal blog.

Using An About Page

An About page is where readers find out more about you and your blog. Readers often use it to decide whether to bother subscribing to a blog.

When you set up a new Edublogs or WordPress blog it automatically comes set up with an ‘About page’. Readers access this page by clicking on About in the page links at the top of your theme or in the link in your sidebar.

The idea is you change the default text on this about page by inserting your own information — here is how-to edit your Default About Page

Please Note: To write an About Page on Blogger you would normally write it as a post and then either:

• Add a link in your blog sidebar using a Text Gadget
• or add a About Page link using a Blogger Template as Sarah Stewart’s done.

Writing a good ‘About Page’ is hard.

What’s written on an ‘About page’ and the types of details included is influenced by the type of blog and the intended readers.

Here’s examples of what you might write on the About Pages of different types of blogs:

1. Teacher/Personal blog
   • Start with info about yourself (as people are more likely to engage with your blog if they can relate to you as an individual)
   • Next tell them about your blog and the reasons why you blog.
   • Not too long, not too short, include photos that help readers relate to you as a person.
   • Check out Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto’s (Teaching Villiage) About page and Vicki Hollett’s (Learning to Speak ‘Merican) Who is Vicki and What’s This Site About
2. Class Blog
   • What country, state and city you are from?
   • Year (grade level), subject and age groups
   • The types of connections your class is interested in e.g. becoming blogging buddies, engaging in global projects
   • The type and size of school
   • Class or teacher contact details
   • Information for students and/or parents on what are blogs, the goals of the class blog, How to interact with the blog e.g. subscribe to blog, comment on posts, guidelines for writing appropriate comments
   • Check out Technology in Our Classroom’s About our Class and Fab4@Work’s About Us
3. Group Blog
   • What’s the blog is about and the reasons why it was created
   • Provide background information on the authors
   • Check out Infinite Thinking Machine’s About page, MacMillian Dictionary’s About page and Work Place Learning Today’s About Page

Don’t forget!

1. Voting is now open and ends USA EST 11.59 PM Wednesday 16 December! – PLEASE click here to visit TimeandDate.com to check the time voting finishes your local time!
2. Winners announced at Awards Ceremony USA EST: 7 pm, Thursday 17 December – PLEASE click here to visit TimeandDate.com to check your local time!

There’s only days till the Edublog Awards Ceremony….so it’s time to record the details in your Calendar!

This year the event will be held in Elluminate.

You just need to click on the following link up to 30 minute before it commences to join the Award ceremony:

http://tinyurl.com/edublogawards

The event is scheduled for:

• GMT/UTC: 12 am, Friday 18 December
• USA EST: 7 pm, Thursday 17 December
• AEST: 11 am, Friday 18 December

PLEASE click here to visit TimeandDate.com to check your local time!

About The Awards Ceremony

During the Ceremony we will be announcing the Winners and runner ups in each of the Award categories.

We’re hoping to invite the winners to speak and tell us more about their site/themselves — time permitting!

So if you’ve been nominated, and would like the opportunity to speak, please:

1. Organise a headset with microphone
2. Set up your audio prior to the event!

If you are new to Elluminate — please make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate before the event by visiting Elluminate Support.

After the Ceremony we would love you to stay on for our After Awards Party! — don’t forget your food and drinks (especially chocolate!)

Recordings of the Ceremony will be posted within a day of the event.

Don’t Forget

The nominations are up and voting is now open in the 2009 Edublog Awards.

So vote for your favorite blogs /sites as voting ends USA EST 11.59 PM Wednesday 16 December!

PLEASE click here to visit TimeandDate.com to check the time voting finishes your local time!

For the latest up-to-date news on the Edublog Awards:

1. Follow edublogs on Twitter
2. Subscribe to the Edublog Award blog via our RSS Feed or email (add your email address to top right sidebar)

Having trouble adding the nomination badge to your blog side bar or posts?

There are a few tricks to it, especially in side bars because you need to use HTML code.

So I thought some of you might like some extra help with instructions.

Adding Your Badge To Your Blog Sidebar

I’ve written the HTML code for all badges with links back to the poll page — so for those that don’t know how to write the code or like the easy option!

Adding your badge now is as easy as:

1. Download this Badges zip file (oops missed a badge – and SocialNetworking Zip for Social networking badge – thanks Martin Hawksey for letting me know)
2. Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your hard drive.
3. Open up badgecode1.txt (contained inside the zip file)
4. Copy the HTML code for your nomination badge
5. Go to Appearance > Widgets in your Dashboard 
6. Drag and drop a Text Widget from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets areas on the left into the Sidebar area on the right
7. Now just paste your HTML code into the text widget, then click Save and Close

Pesto!

Your nomination badge should now display in your blog sidebar and clicking on it will take readers to the page where they can add their vote!

Adding Your Badge To A Blog Post

You have two options.

1. Use the HTML code I’ve created (Badges zip file) and click on the HTML Tab in your Write post area then paste the code
2. Copy the Image URL  from Nomination Badges Are Now Available! post by:
   • Right clicking on the image and selecting Copy Image location or Copy Shortcut.
   • Then insert the image in your post by clicking on Add an Image and adding the image URL.