I had a bit of a promo yesterday for the Edublog Awards and the blogs I'd submitted for nomination getting on the shortlists. I was really chuffed that writers I really value have been given some recognition - that part's much more important than who wins or loses. But there's an ironic twist to this little story...
I'm not a terribly organised person - my boss would call me a "gunna" - I'm gunna do this and I'm gonna do that. So, after sending the noms in on the late afternoon of the deadline, I resolved that I was "gunna" go and get my votes in while it was front and centre in my brain. Stephen is right - quite a few TechLearning K-12 nominations there but my choices were trying to highlight gems away from the mainstream. Off I went to the Official Website™ (sorry for the breach, D'Arcy) and started logging my votes via the handy Survey Monkey tool. I got down to the Best Teacher blog and clicked on the link to cast my vote for Doug and I noticed something weird. At the bottom of the list was my blog - what the ...? Something was up. At first, I thought it was one of those displaying the logged in name thing on a website which shows you how little I really know about technology anyway. Then I thought there's been a typo, Josie's inserted this accidentally while cut'n'pasting because I was one of the people who sent nominations in (my blog address was on the bottom of the e-mail) so I emailed her and said as much.
This afternoon after my Sunday morning golf round, I checked my e-mail and it turns there was a mistake. The mistake however was that someone (or someones) did actually nominate my blog but Josie had accidentally left it off the main page of the site. So now I'm feeling a bit strange - part of me wants to write here "Don't waste your vote, vote for Borderland" but that could be a bit insulting to those who did put my name forward. (And I can tell you it wasn't me - self promotion was something that hasn't been that successful in my life.) But another part is quite pleased to have the recognition - that's enough to leave me a happy little edublogger. And if you don't want to vote for this blog, at least fill out my little survey in the sidebar!
Doug Noon
Graham, you got my vote. Thanks for your endorsement.
Chris Harbeck
Love your blog Graham. Keep it up. Always a good read
Al Upton
Congratulations Graham, you have certainly put in a huge amount of time, thought and insight into your blog. What a wonderful journey since those early days. You have achieved the visibility and profile well suited to your purposes of professional reflection, sharing and collaboration. Now … can I convince you to start blogging with the kids? 🙂 Seriously mate, you have so much to offer and deserve every recognition. We need more leading lights like you.
All the best with the awards, Al
D'Arcy Norman
Congrats! You deserve some limelight. But, what breach?
Graham Wegner
Sorry, D’Arcy, my extra lame sense of humour in action again – the Official Website™ was a copy of your trademark use of trademark symbols in your posts – that was my breach!
Al, you have every right to call me out on the classroom blogging – it is definitely on my agenda for 2007, especially as I will be classroom based for four days of the week. Access has been my enemy this year. We did start a classroom blog but it faltered after the first term but you are right, more classrooms need to be blogging. Count me in.
Thanks for the kudos, Chris and Doug.
D'Arcy Norman
Ah. Gotcha™ 🙂 I hardly own the trademark on ™. I’m working on a patent application for it, though…