I thought of writing my thoughts about the Edublog Awards, tag Josie, and possibly obtain her feedback. But it happened the other way about. Josie heard me thinking out loud in Twitter and answered my thoughts on the spot.
I transcribe the conversation and context (to be read in reverse chronological order).
 | josiefraser @fceblog Flatter yes - still recreating those damn silos though http://fraser.typepad.com/s... |
| | josiefraser @fceblog - yep, all nominations. Agree nominators need to stay anonymous. Interested in any approach that saves us work :) |
 | englishstudio @fceblog indeed - I've learnt so much from all of you - whom I've never met in person !! |
 | fceblog Epiphany- All these people so crucial to my learning. Never met f2f. Some never will. Inevitably. f2f is within frontiers. Now we are flat. |
| | fceblog @josiefraser Just a thought for suggesting who to look at for nomination. Nomination remains anonymous. |
| | fceblog @josiefraser If each award category had a tag (category+07), we could tag our saved fav blogs /subscribe and automatic post to wiki. |
| | fceblog @josiefraser Swell! Edublog Awards Nominations via del.icio.us... If it is all nominations, not just shortlist that is a great idea! |
| | josiefraser @fceblog - we'll be putting out all nominations via de.licio.us this year, organized by cat for browsing/searching |
| | fceblog @josiefraser I think we all have RSS overload problems. I'd like a wiki to suggest who to nominate. Make the backstage more transparent. |
| | josiefraser @fceblog - wiki nominations is such cool idea - we should really look into that for next year. Thanks! |
| | fceblog @coolcatteacher I'd like to see a wiki where teachers drop links under each award category. Not fair to vote people in my RSS only. |
 | coolcatteacher Edublog award nominations are open - http://tinyurl.com/ypcncx |
Thank you Josie for this conversation. Now back to my original thoughts...
Whenever I have landed on a blog bearing an edublog award/nominee badge, I have never been disappointed. It was well worth spending time learning there. If you are completely new to the edublogosphere, past award winners are a great sample of the level of growth achieved in the network.
The blogosphere has grown so much since 2004 when the awards started. We must abandon hopes of keeping up with reading it all, let alone finding gems among newbies on our own. Somehow, the effort of finding, listing and pre-reviewing potential nominees will have to be distributed across the network for the awards to make sense in future editions.
Thinking about nominees, the first names that come to mind are:
a) in my RSS
b) have already won the award
Although I feel a strong impulse to nominate them again, I think these awards should be an opportunity for me to read new bloggers, reflect on the reasons to nominate them and learn something in the process. That is by far a much more engaging topic of conversation for me than who won. That is why I would like a wiki where we can:
a) post prospective nominee blogs
b) discuss valuable contributions
What a learning experience that could be! Collectively writing the rubrics for our own assessment.
Personally, I feel my learning benefits more from my untrimmed RSS than a nominee shortlist; contacts from varied geographical locations and languages. As far as I know, these awards are not reaching beyond the English speaking world, which leaves an important part of my learning network out. Might I add new people to my network once the results are published?
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