Quality Education Blogs

Bring on the weekend!

If you're reading this, that means that you successfully survived the work week! Congrats! If you want to kick off your weekend reading up on some cool blogs, here's a list to get you started.

1. The Innovative Educator: Lisa Nielson found school boring and ineffective growing up, so she dedicated this blog to helping teachers create engaging, creative and innovative (just as the title indicates) classrooms. She often posts about ways to use social media and popular websites to keep up to date with the biggest trends to reach students in new ways. 
2. Life in Special Education: Karla uses this blog to share lesson plan ideas, with real-life examples, pictures, and online resources to enhance the students experience. She also posts her favorite education blogs and legal websites that can be helpful in and out of the special education classroom. 
3. Chalk One Up for the Teacher: Cyndie Dunn is a senior blogger who has created four successful blogs about education. This specific blog has a lot of classroom management ideas, included "students as coaches" and she shares many freebies for teachers. 
4. Cycles of Learning: Ramsay Musallam is best known for his TED talks on sparking learning, but he is also a professional education "hacker." He specializes in making learning with technology simpler, more approachable and more fun for teachers and students. 
5. Teachers at Risk: As a special educator, Elona Hartjes (MEd.) was inspired by her son to create this blog. He mentioned that her job was to identify at-risk students, but teachers are also at-risk to the stresses and difficulties of special education, she writes about ways for teachers to prevent burnout and continue loving the job. 
6. My Paperless Classroom: Teachercast was created to make a "place for teachers to help other teachers." Dr. Sam Patterson is a blogger on this network who creates videos to help teachers learn and utilize the most recent technology in place of traditional paper and pencil class work. 
7. Assistive Technology: A blog on the topic of mind mapping, eLearning, assistive technology. It shows teachers ways to teach students of all kinds, despite any mental or physical challenges. 
8. Bilingual Special Education: Depending on the school district that teachers are placed, some students many not only have to overcome mental and physical disabilities, but may also be English language learners. This blog is designed as a support system and also knowledge base for such teachers.  
9. The Shut-Down Learner: Dr. Richard Selznick recognizes that students with learning disabilities often do not enjoy school. This blog gives parents and teachers lots of ideas to make school and learning fun. 
10. Special Education Today: A source for adults outside of the special education classroom, that brings together the biggest headlines in one place. John Lloyd is open to collaboration and brings together other educational bloggers to discuss and debate the biggest issues surrounding special ed today.