DABA: Scott Meech

by Scott McLeod | Jan 18, 2008 | Blogging, DABA | 4 comments

It’s time to name the next recipient of the crimson megaphone! This week I pick Scott Meech’s blog, Technology in Education isn’t the Future… It is the Present!, as one that I think deserves a bigger audience (DABA).

Here are a few posts (SMosts, Scott?) to get you started:

• Digital Citizenship – Modern Day Slavery?
• When Web 2.0 Tools go bad… Tonight at 10 PM on your local News Network.
• I am a teacher @#@#$%#%_#$% …. why doesn’t she listen to me and learn!
• Response to Gary Stager’s Rant Against
• The most important quality of a technology coordinator is…

Scott’s also a great commenter on others’ blogs and is very active in the Texas educational technology scene. Happy reading!

• See list of DABA blogs
• Read DABA posts on a web page
• Subscribe to DABA posts via RSS
• Subscribe to DABA posts via e-mail
• DABA clip code
• DABA blogroll code
• The Crimson Megaphone

DABA: Greg Farr

by Scott McLeod | Jan 11, 2008 | Blogging, DABA | 0 comments

Greg Farr makes me laugh ‘til my sides hurt. That’s probably the best endorsement I can give this Texas principal blogger. Greg also blogs for LeaderTalk (and I encourage you to check out his posts there too). However, he reserves the best part of his comic brilliance for his own blog. I think Greg deserves a bigger audience (DABA) and thus award him the crimson megaphone:

• FarBucks

Greg mixes in the personal with the professional and is always thought-provoking and/or entertaining (for example, he has no qualms about posting a picture of his father wearing a rice sack). Here are a few posts to get you started:

• Wii Wanna Play, Too!
• My Origami Learning Curve
• The Check Is In the Mail
• Is the Word of God Research Based?
• Tossing Dan a Lifeline

[Sorry, Greg. I outed you. Hope I don’t drive you under cover again.]

Happy reading!

• See list of DABA blogs
• Read DABA posts on a web page
• Subscribe to DABA posts via RSS
• Subscribe to DABA posts via e-mail
• DABA clip code
• DABA blogroll code
• The Crimson Megaphone

DABA: Kilian Betlach

by Scott McLeod | Jan 4, 2008 | Blogging, DABA | 4 comments

As I mentioned last week, each Friday I’m going to try to highlight a blog that I think deserves a bigger audience (DABA). The first recipient in 2008 of the crimson megaphone is… (drum roll, please)

• Teaching in the 408

Blogging under the nom de plume of TMAO, Kilian Betlach is probably my favorite education blogger. It’s downright criminal that he doesn’t have more readers. Here’s the tag line at the top of his blog:

We must reject the ideology of the "achievement gap" that absolves adults of their responsibility and implies student culpability in continued under-performance. The student achievement gap is merely the effect of a much larger and more debilitating chasm: The Educator Achievement Gap. We must erase the distance between the type of teachers we are, and the type of teachers they need us to be.

Here are a few posts to get you started:

• On NCLB
• The Ledge
• I Hate This Time of Year
• The Teachers You Hate Sitting Next To During All-District PD

I’m not quite sure what needs to be done to boost Kilian’s readership. Kilian’s writing already has been recognized by Jay Matthews at The Washington Post and he finished fourth in the Best Teacher Blog category of this year’s Edublog Awards. I agree with Dan Meyer that Teaching in the 408 is ‘without question the best classroom blog on the Internet’ and that Kilian ‘deserves every page view.’ If you only add one new blog to your reading list this year, this should be it.

Happy reading!

• See list of DABA blogs
• Read DABA posts on a web page
• Subscribe to DABA posts via RSS
• Subscribe to DABA posts via e-mail
• DABA clip code
• DABA blogroll code
• The Crimson Megaphone

P.S. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach had a nice roundup of some new, provocative teacher blogs. Thanks for sharing with us, Sheryl!

DABA: Blogs that deserve a bigger audience

by Scott McLeod | Dec 28, 2007 | Blogging, DABA | 10 comments

Earlier this year I profiled some ‘new voices‘ in the edublogosphere that I thought deserved more attention.

I am going to try and revive (and rebrand) that idea in 2008. In the coming year, I will attempt each Friday to highlight a blog that I believe deserves a bigger audience (DABA). I will be picking blogs that:

• have new content fairly frequently (i.e., at least a few times a month);
• have a Technorati authority of less than 100 (I’ll probably make exceptions to this now and then); and
• I think are interesting, provocative, relevant, and/or important to K-12 educators.

Most of my picks will be education blogs, although I also will throw in other blogs now and then.

In order to make these blogs as accessible and visible as possible, I have created a Google Notebook page that will list all DABA blogs to date (I’ve included my previous ‘new voices’ blogs too):

• See list of DABA blogs

I also have created a feed that will allow you to read and/or subscribe to all of the DABA blogs in one place:

• Read DABA posts on a web page
• Subscribe to DABA posts via RSS
• Subscribe to DABA posts via e-mail

Here’s the code if you want to add the DABA blogs as a clip on your web site or a blogroll:

• DABA clip code
• DABA blogroll code

And, finally, I have created a graphic for anyone who wants to post my recognition of their blog (again, this includes my previous ‘new voices’ blogs):

• The Crimson Megaphone

Like the Weblog Awards, Edublog Awards, and Bloggies, the goal of the DABA initiative is to help publicize some great blogs that have the potential to make bigger contributions (in this case, to K-12 education). Some might call these blogs the ‘Z list‘ or the ‘F list.‘ Whatever you call them, they deserve to be more visible.

Contact me if you know of a blog that might be a good candidate for the DABA list. As always, any other suggestions you have for me are welcome as well. I’ll begin next Friday!

Notes

Hopefully this blog post also is a good model of how educators can take a group of blogs and make them accessible in different ways by using Google Notebook, Google Reader, and/or Feedburner.