So you want to be a great teacher?

I love to read and bookmark the teaching or learning blogs and whenever I am succeeded to find a site or blog I am happy to share it with my blog readers. Today's blog review is for teachers who love their profession and want to get useful information or suggestions from other experienced teachers to become great teachers.

'So you want to teach' is a teacher's blog who is trying to become a great teacher. Blog is loaded with useful articles. It includes the useful tips and ideas to manage classrooms, dealing with students, how to enhance your teaching etc.

Joel (the blogger) says: 'This blog is different -I strive to keep a personal atmosphere and writing style, while freely transferring practical information in meaningful and positive ways.'

He further says: 'I began teaching band in 2002. Though I had a lot of information, my classes were out of control. I was tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting.

I had had enough. I resigned from my school district right before spring break of my second year and made it my personal mission to learn to be a great teacher.

So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of my quest for educational excellence.'

Popular post section seems quite interesting and valuable for teachers as it includes:

• Top 5 (Plus 14) Character Traits Of Superior Teachers
• 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick)
• 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers
• Are Classroom Rules Needed?
• How Do I Keep My Students Quiet?
• Fun Back to School Activities
• Habit 2: Classroom Habits
• New Teacher Survival Kit 

You can start browsing the site by going directly to the popular post titles or just click the 'Start' tab to go for 20 classic articles.

A nutrition and health blog from a padriatric nutrition mom -Beyong Parent'

During writing review for 'preschooler mom' I came across another nice blog 'Beyond Parent' which is from a registered Dietitian and Certified Lactation Counselor. Debra has got a Master's Degree in Public Health. Her nutrition specialties include perinatal nutrition, pediatric nutrition, breastfeeding, and food allergies.



'Beyond Parents' is a parent blog dealing in nutrition and health of children.

'The goal of Beyond Prenatals is to encourage and empower women to learn more about nutrition during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood...and to go "beyond" prenatal vitamins in striving to create healthy families.'

As the blogger is herself a padiatric nutrition specialists it is obvious that you may get useful tips and suggestions regarding child and kid's food, health etc.
It seems that she is also a working and busy mom, so there are not frequent articles at the blog but the advice and useful information you can get from the blog is worth to check.

You can also follow her at 'twitter' or get subscription of the blog to get updated post news.

A blog for mothers of preschoolers with tips and resources

I love to share the resources I find during my browsing the net. It is a pleasure for me to discover good stuff, good blogs with useful tips, and resources. Being an educator at a primary school and dealing with reception stage children (4 years to 5 year old), I am in need of more ideas and tips to adopt for my own classroom. I prefer to bookmark blogs which are created with personal touch and experience. 'Preschool mama' is one of those blogs which I have subscribed to get updates of next articles.

'Preschool mama'  is a wonderful blog sharing resources for mothers of preschoolers. The blog is created by a former Montessori preschool teacher and mother of a kid.

What you can find at the blog?

• Blog has a lot of stuff to help you give your child an edge, enhance his learning and reading skills, and boost self esteem.
• You can find resources, easy tips and how tos for fun activities and crafts projects. 
• Get advice on dealing with common preschooler health and nutrition issues.
• Simple and easy ideas for arts and crafts that combine creativity with a great bonding experience for you and your child.
• Resources to help with potty training and bed wetting issues, ways to enhance socials skills and encourage independent thinking, and a lot more.

The blogger says:
'You’ll find all the stuff that’s worked for me, the well meaning tips that didn’t, and the tricks I wish I’d known when I was raising my son.
You’ll also find advice, inspiration and motivation for you, the PreSchool Mama, without who this blog wouldn’t exist.'

Start seaching the sites from 'Best of preschool mama' page where you can find posts covering all the topics essentail for the skill or persoanlity development of your child.

Note: Unfortunately blog is not being updated since two years, but still there is good stuff at the blog.

Have fun learning maths with 'math mom'

Math is really fun when you really enjoy learning it. I can feel it while doing activities at reception stages (nursery classes). These activities help children learn maths and prepare them for next levels for mental maths. Numeracy strategy has made the maths very easy and fun for young age kids because it really helps them learn maths with playful activities. I am here with a review about a blog and the person behind it 'Maria Lando' who is a math lover. I have copied many words which she said at her blog because I want the readers of this post to check the site themselves. I am sure you would be loving 'math' while having fun learning math with 'math mom'

Maria Lando is the name behind 'The math mom'. She is a working mom who loves humor and maths.

'It has been my drug, my meditation, my weapon and my best friend. It fed and dressed me, led to travel, men, lavish parties and even Cuban cigars. It has placed my name on a movie screen, put my work in museums and allowed me to manipulate things deep inside the human brain. It is called Math.

I believe that math is like reading - simple and regular daily activity guiding us on every step of our way, providing directions, bringing pleasure when encountering a masterpiece, or joy of observing a clever unexpected use. We all are much better at math that we think. And it is about time to adjust our math attitude. Math is not only for geek men in plaid shirts with thick glasses that we stereotype loosing their minds in the hands of beautiful wives and daughters. Math can be everything we make it to be: cool, hip, fun. You can use math to find a real anti-salt solution, to create treasure hunt for you kid birthday party, to check whether 30% off after 50% discount is the same as 80% off (it is not), or to justify not organizing your closet. I believe we pass math attitude the same way we pass language and traditions through generations. By finding our own peace with math, we won't be transferring our math fears down to our kids.'

Liked it?

Then read the full story yourself: 'Love, life and math'

She says: 'Math can be our friend, our tool and our weapon. We all are much better at it than we think. By finding our own peace with math we won't be transferring our math fears over to our kids. Math is for everyone to enjoy. Come play along and become a Math Mom!'

*'Math mom' at news: 'Meet the Math Mom'

'Child Psychology Research Blog' helping us understand child behavior

It is sometimes very difficult to understand child behavior until we get some experience of dealing with children from some time. As an educator our teaching experience helps us understand the child development and its complications but still we need to learn more about our children. Research based child psychology posts or articles are really helpful for parents and educators in dealing with the children.

Child Psychology Research Blog offers research based commentary on child psychology.

The author of the blog is 'Nestor L. Lopez-Duran, PhD.' who is a clinical child psychologist and neuroscience researcher working at a large Midwest University. She currently conduct research on mood disorders in children and adolescents, and she is the editor of Child-Psych, where she discusses the latest research findings on parenting, child disorders, and child development.

More about the 'Child Psychology Research Blog:

It is a research-based informational blog about child psychology, parenting, and childhood disorders. It provides reviews of the latest scientific findings on a number of psychiatric and neuro developmental disorders in a style that is accessible to parents, educations, and clinicians.

Their mission is to become the most comprehensive online resource of science-supported information on child psychology. They provide a framework that helps readers understand the studies and provide information on how each study fits within previous research.

Follow them at 'twitter'

'Zaid Learn' - An educational blog

Zaid Learn is a learning blog which is created by 'Zaid Ali Alsagoff' from Malaysia, who is from education field and an 'e-Learning Researcher'.

More about Zaid in his own words:

'I am an e-learning manager and researcher. I have done research in several key e-learning areas, including educational gaming, role-play simulation, virtual classrooms, learning (content) management systems, e-learning standards, instructional design and courseware development. In addition, I have two (2) years experience in courseware development (as an ID), and an educational background in Psychology and IT management. My strengths include creative and critical thinking, content development, instructional design, system analysis (and visualization), analytical thinking, writing e-learning proposals, conducting workshops, giving presentations, interpersonal communication and pro-activeness.'

His career and interests are reflected at his blogs posts. Blog is about 3 years old but quality of articles and research proves that it has got google page rank 5. I personally found many links and resources at his blog. There are many articles about other resources as well.

Helping you learn 'Mission to learn'

Mission to learn is another educational blog. You can read articles on a wide range of learning resources, insights about what it means to be a lifelong learner on the social Web, and news about topics like open education, serious games, brain science, and more.

Blog posts are really informative and valuable

35+ Free Online Business Education Sites
26 Learning Games to Change the World
More Than 100 Free Places to Learn Online - And Counting
More Than 50 Web Widgets for Your Learning Mix

Another post 'Is Your Brain in a Box?' is very unique on 'learning and brain plasticity' topic which might be interesting for the teachers who want to know more about the brain and learning.

* Mission to Learn Blog - Postings 2-3 times per week on new learning resources, news, and insights about learning.

* Radio Free Learning - An occasional (aiming for one to two times per month) podcast in which I interview thinkers and doers in the world of lifelong learning. Subscribe to the Radio Free Learning Podcast via RSS or with iTunes.

You can also explore each of the channels to get a better feel for what they offer. Check our the Free Learning Monitor archives, listen to some of the recent Radio Free Learning podcasts.

Best way to get informed about the updated post is to subscribe to the blog newsletter. You would receive a monthly digest of free and low-cost online courses, tutorials, videos, podcasts, games, and blogs.

Get free subscription of their newsletter: 'free learning monitor'

Practice Of Blogging In Classroom

Many educational institutions or teachers are aware of the power and affects of "Blogging" for educational purposes but they don't know where to start. I hope that this article would help the students or teachers interested for use of blogging in classroom.

Blogs for Learning, is an online resource about instructional blogging. The site provides students and instructors with information and resources about the technical and pedagogical aspects of blogging in the classroom.

Blogs for Learning was originally conceived by Dr. Ethan Watrall and Dr. Nicole Ellison as a robust online resource designed for students and instructors who are interested in the theory and practice of blogging within an educational setting.

The goal of Blogs for Learning is to provide information and resources as to the technical, legal, and pedagogical aspects of blogging in the classroom. The design of the Blogs for Learning site was carefully conceived to be elegant, highly standards compliant and very forward thinking.

Blogs for Learning was created with the generous support from the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and the Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University.

Articles section contains very useful articles which can be downloaded easily either for reading or printing.

Few titles are:

- Student Blogging - What You Should Know

- Blogging for Large Classes

- Using Blogs in a College Classroom: What's Authenticity Got To Do With It?

* There are many tutorials which are in a flash presentation format, so you just have to sit, relax, watch the videos and learn about "Blogging". (Section is not working for the time being, but hope that it would be updated soon)

Read their "blog" for useful and latest articles.

Related links and posts:

- Use second generation web technologies so you can be at the forefront of transforming learning in your school at The Why 2 of Web 2.0

- Benefits of classroom Blogging?

- Classroom Blogging: More than Just Tech Ed

- A blog about career development, technology and learning strategies: The Bamboo Project

- A blog about Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century.
'Learning Blog'

- Links for teachers to start educational blogs

- Effective use of Blogging in education

Join the Social Network For Learning - 'ePals'

ePals is a community of connected classrooms, which is equally beneficial for students and teachers.

It is fastest growing K-12 online community for meaningful learning. More than half a million educators and millions of learners across 200 countries and territories safely connect, collaborate and build community.

It offers classroom e-mail, blogs, online literacy tools and Web-based collaborative projects on subjects like global warming and habitats.

EPals says 125,000 classrooms around the world are using at least some of its free tools, reaching 13 million students, and its ambition is to become a global “learning social network.”

What you can do at ePals:

1- Collaborate with another classroom
2- Find great projects and instructional materials at ePals
3- Chat with other teachers
4- Share your successful lessons and resources
5- Connect Your Families
6- Have a say! Cast a vote in the Polls
7- Connect with Email
8- Protect your students with Monitored Accounts
9- Create a Blog - We want to hear what you have to say
10-Ask an ePals Teacher

There are many forums where teachers or students where you can ask questions, read the other member's opinions and place comments.

I could see many posts which are about learning a foreign language. Especially for the people who learn English as a second language

Click on the "support" link to see what you can get from ePals and how to start discovering what ePal is.

Teachers and schools can now create blog at ePal.

"ePals is now making SchoolBlog available at no cost to schools, districts, and learners globally. ePal wants to partner with the education community to speed the rate of safe and collaborative learning around the world.

Create your own free 'Blog'

Are you new to internet and don't know how to start a 'blog'?

When you log on to "Blogger", you are provided step by step instructions to follow. But if the process is still difficult for you, then the resources given at this post would be helpful for you to start your own blog.

- Blogger help page can help you in creating your own blog. But if you still need help, then 'The step by step guide provided by " Michigan State University" can surely help you :
- How to Establish a Blog

- A step by step guide to create blog

- Another tutorial at 'Digital divide': How to create your own blog?

- How to create and promote a blog?

- The Blogosphere and Creating Your Own Blog

- How to Create a Blog With WordPress

A family blog from a parent

I usually review the sites which are related to teaching, learning, parenting and so on. Today's blog is from Rozz_Lea Rozie, who is a business Development Executive from Malaysia and a mom blogger. Blog is very colourful and especially I liked it for a personal touch. The topics you can find the posts about are:Random Daily Happenings, Family, Children, Life, Personal, Friends, News, Events, Thoughts, Poems, Foods, Cultures, Nature, Books,Travel and writings.

I spent a lot of time to see the posts and I was amazed to read some very appealing posts. As in her post "Morning thoughts" she says:
"You may not realize this, but it is nevertheless a fact.
If you set out with worry and depression,
of soul toward fate or man, you are giving the key note
to a day of discord and misfortunes.

If you think peace, hope, and happiness,
you are sounding a note of harmony and success.

The result may not be felt at once,
but it will not fail to make itself evident eventually.

Control your morning thoughts.

You can do it! "

She hasn't mentioned that she likes to read self help topics, but from few of her posts I can estimate that she reads about variety of topics. Isn't it Rozie?

One thing I am confused about that blog is only few months old, but she could manage to write many posts in one month. As in April she had 18 posts, then in May 40 and June with 46 posts. It shows her interest in blog that she is very passionate about it.

"Kaushal Sheth"- providing guide to best web hosting

Kaushal Sheth is a young blogger from Mumbai, India. He is himself a student of electronics and telecommunication and this blog is an effort to learn better about Web Designing, Content Development, Web Development
Marketing ,Branding, Internet Advertising, Blogs, Search Engines and SEO.

As he considers himself a student and learner, his advice in sugesting us the
best web hosting might be very useful. Because he researched the web to find out top 10 hosting sites. He has given only 3 site links, but we hope that after more search, he can suggest more sites to the blog readers.

He offers blog templates and he also provides custom themes at a nominal rate.
Blog is very easy to search.

There are many
You can get the updates at your in-box by subscribing the blog: subscribe here

* His links page: recommended links
* You can download many word press themes
FREE at this link
* Link for bloggers templates
His site Kaushal Sheth.net has more blog templates and themes.

"Neurolearning blog"- A blog about learning, teaching and brain

Eide Neurolearning Blog is created by the persons who are from education field, alongwith physician degree, so their posts are very rich informative source. Parents or teacher can both read the blog to know more about learning and brain related articles.

Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide, who are physicians and from education field. This blog is about brain, learning, teaching and more about these topics.

Few very useful and informative articles:

* In the article "What Today's Students Can Learn from IDEO " it says:
"IDEO is a world reknown and innovative design firm that helped develop Apple Computer's first mouse, the Palm V, the insulin pen, the first stand-up toothpaste tube, and overhauled the consumer experiences of Kaiser Permanente Hospitals and high fashion dressing rooms.

With the Information Revolution, facts and information base are not the essential commodity any more. It's no longer vital to "know that", but rather to "know why" and "how to make better." And these skills are right up IDEO's alley. What IDEO may help specifically with is a more systematic approach to teaching and encouraging problem solving."
To read in details:

* The Blessings and the Burdens of High IQ

* Your Brain with Time- What About Teen Brain?

* Timing is Everything - Dyslexia, ADHD, Auditory Processing, Sensory Integration.

* Research studies have shown video gamers who practice on action games like Medal of Honor have a wider visual span and greater sensitivity to visual detection. But the flipside of this visual sensitivity is increased visual distraction. More at the article: Are Computers Driving Us to Distraction?

Their one of the blog is Classical School Blog which is about resources, links, and lesson plans- including all aspects of the Trivium - Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, Latin and a little Greek, Ancient and Modern History, Great Books and Philosophy, Bible and Theology, and Classical Math and Science. For homeschooling and traditional schooling parents and teachers.

Build your own web site!

Learning is really fun, as it is a creative process which should continue. When I started surfing the internet, I was really amazed to see that there is a lot to browse and learn. But I was still not sure that I can do something with creating my own site or blog, until after reading a lot of free stuff about web sites and blogs, I started my first web site and then blog. The journey continued, and I gradually but slowly kept on learning new and basic things about internet, browsing, web development, blogs, blogging etc. It has been more than 2 years when I started my first blog with a blogging network, who provided me basic guidelines to start and develop it. Few months passed, but I was not very much serious about it. Its one year ago, when I realized that I have learned enough to start my own blogs. About 8 months ago, I started my first "WordPress" blog Reviews and ramblings around the blogsphere! and as the response was appreciating, I started more blogs, which are getting good exposure.
I told you my own blogging story just to show that if you are also interented in web searching or developing your own site or blog, it can be a fun. Even though I learned from lot of mistakes, but now at this stage I can provied you enough useful stuff which can guide in making or creating your own web site.

Do it yourself web site
* Writing HTML
If you are facing problems while learning to build your web site:
Read the frequently asked question page

Effective use of Blogging in education

There is a wide usage of blogging in learning sector. I was really surprise to know that "blogging" is very effectively been used in education sector. Here are some links for teachers to create blogs for them or for their students. There are some article links which can guide you if you are in doubt to use "blogging" for educational purposes.

Education blogs are becoming a means for educators, students, and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before. Technorati currently tracks 63.1 million blogs. Over 5,000 of them are about education.
There are over 30,000 blogs hosted at edublogs.org alone.
Link with 100 educational blogs list:
Top 100 Education Blogs

*** The largest education community on the internet, Edublogs was started on the 31st of July 2005 in Melbourne, Australia.. Now hosting over 100,000 blogs.
Edublogs.org

How?

* Sign up for a free education blog in seconds
* Use it to transform your teaching or talk to other teachers
* Powered by WordPress, the best blogging tool on the web
* Safe, secure, supported and free of any advertising
* Providing entirely free tools with no advertising, no fees and no limits on elements like bandwidth.They can even give you 100MB of upload space, completely free of charge.

* "Blogs in Education" is a page to provide you some resources if you want to start using blogs for yourself or your students. Options for instructors using blogs are:
- Content-related blog as professional practice
- Networking and personal knowledge sharing
- Instructional tips for students
- Course announcements and readings
- Annotated links
- Knowledge management
Stedents can use blogs in:
- Reflective or writing journals
- Knowledge management
- Assignment submission and review
- Dialogue for groupwork
- E-portfolios
- Share course-related resources
For resources and more details: Blogs in Education

*** Educational blogger network(eBN) is a community of teachers and education professionals and supporters who use weblogs for teaching and learning. The network assists members to advance weblog integration in education.
Mission:

"eBN is a collaborative of teachers and organizations using weblogs in education. Its purpose is to help its members, kindergarten through university, to access and use weblog technology for the teaching of writing and reading across the disciplines. The network provides a forum for educational professionals who use weblogs, an array of opportunities for teachers to continue their professional growth, and a framework for cooperation to deal with issues that affect the integration of weblog and other digital technologies into teaching and learning."

*** epals.com's motto is "Where Learner's Connect"
"ePals" is making SchoolBlog available at no cost to schools, districts, and learners globally.

What they say about themselves: "Our Global Community™ is the largest online community of K-12 learners, enabling more than 325,000 educators and 126,000 classrooms in over 200 countries and territories to safely connect, exchange ideas, and learn together. Our award winning SchoolBlog™ and SchoolMail™ products are widely used and trusted by schools around the world."

*** This is a pdf report which you can download by clicking right mouse button and then choosing "save as" for your hard disk drive: Blogging to learn

Read same report in html version: HTML version

*** E school News
A report published at "E school news:
Blogs are changing education (Winners of the first-ever 'Best of the Education Blog' Awards discuss blogging's impact on teaching and learning )

What is "eSchool News"?
"eSchool News" is a monthly print newspaper providing the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and the internet to transform North America's schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
The print newspaper is read by more than 300,000 school leaders, and a companion web site—eSchool News Online (http://www.eschoolnews.com ) is visited by more than 300,000 unique visitors each month, including 135,000 registered members.

Mission:
eSchool News — helping educators succeed by;

- Providing the latest news, resources and reports on the applications of technology to improve learning
- Providing resources and tools to evaluate the funding, purchasing and the evaluation of technology in the education systems.
- Assisting educators in forming collaborative alliances and providing a valuable resource bank for the exchange of information, ideas and best practices.

Few education blogs and articles:

* Brian's Education blog

* Dave's Educational Blog
About David: Dave is a Tech Coordinator at the University of Prince Edward Island. He is also the Education coordinator for the Worldbridges family of websites and cohost of edtechtalk.

* Adventure in educational blogging Susan Sedro is Technology Coordinator in Woodlands,Singapore.

*** Support Blogging has been set up to provide an opportunity for students, teachers, administrators, parents, and others to help promote an understanding of the benefits of educational blogging.
Explanation of Educational Blogging at "Support Blogging"

Link to the site:
Support Blogging

* An article about usage of internet blogs to enhance classroom communication and collaboration: Classroom blogs and Wikis

* "EDUCAUSE Review" is the association's award-winning magazine for the higher education IT community. Published bimonthly in print (21,000 distributed copies) and online, the magazine takes a broad look at current developments and trends in information technology, how they may affect the college/university as an institution, and what these mean for higher education and society. An article from "EDUCAUSE Review": Educational Blogging

* An article from the "emints": "The eMINTS" National Center is an independent business unit of the University of Missouri. eMINTS offers professional development programs created by educators for educators.
Teaching Tips: Using Online Journals and Blogs

* Edu Blog Insights is an educational blog from Anne Davis who works at Georgia State University in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education as an Information Systems Training Specialist.
He is an educator with over 20 years experience as an elementary classroom teacher, an instructional lead teacher, a reading specialist, and an instructional technology specialist.

His EduBlog is a place to reflect, discuss, and explore possibilities for the use of weblogs in education.
His article:
Rationale for educational blogging

* Another useful article from :Lorelle at Word press

* Cool tools for cool teaching-blogging

* Blogging Basics: Creating Student Journals on the Web

Create a free Islamic blog!

I have been blogging from few years, but could not get in touch with good Islamic blogs. But as blogs are getting popularity I could see many quality blogs which are created within year or so. And I like browsing blogs, due to a personal touch, but web sites providing same information don't attract my attention. The main reason of blog popularity is the freshness of content, recent news and thoughts, relevant to today's modern life.

I was really impressed to see My Minaret, which is a blogging network, providing free WordPress blog. If you have a little knowledge of WordPress or blogging, you can start blogging now at: My Minaret

Some features:

* There are 32 exciting Islamic themes, and you are free to choose any one for your blog.
* You can post content, images, video and audio links that can be played inside the blog.
* You can use this blog for Dawah purposes.





Manage content at your site: Guide to manage content

*** My blog at MyMinaret

Few useful posts for teachers, parents and kids!

It is a collection of useful posts and links for every teacher,parent and kids.
I have plan to add more links and posts, so please check often this blog for more useful stuff.

** keep-your-kids-protected-online/

** food-for-thought-seeds-of-wisdom/

** How-to-keep-our-children-protected-online/

** come-and-read-a-parable/

** You-watch-tv-to-turn-your-brain-off/

** Review-of-an-interesting-and-inspirational-site-the-truth-campaign/

** Review-of-a-site-giving-you-advice-on-good-habits-zen-habits/

** Do-you-have-a-trouble-tree?/ (I think everybody should have it!)

** Are-you-happy-with-your-life?/

** Change-our-world-for-the-better/