It always happens to me - I get excited over the idea of doing something I don't really believe I'm capable of. It's like creating a vision of an ideal future. I thought of this before - my personal blog. I was seeing myself blogging some day, when I have something to blog about. Well, this day (night rather) has come, and I must blog. I don't know how I'm going to do this!

I'm taking this fascinating class, "Learning Theories and Instruction". Everything is great - I've always been interested in studying the best ways to learn things, to improve my capabilities of learning, and to do that some nontraditional way, by using some kind of technology. Blogging is the requirement for this class.

This week we were supposed to look through some blogs about learning and Instructional Design, and choose three to talk about. It was frustrating initially, because all I was finding were terribly disorganized pages. One blog talked a great deal about what good design should be - and yet, the site was quite messy. The content prevailed, and navigation was difficult. Other sites, like Edublogs, initially looked much better, more organized, but material was mostly tech support, organizational problems, and adds - I couldn't find anything of value to read.

Here are the three sites I eventually liked:

1. Ferdinand Krauss’s IDEAS: Instructional Design for Elearning ApproacheS, http://ideas.blogs.com/lo/2004/04/
I was very impressed by his biography - he is an intensely dedicated, "hands on" instructional designer, with deep knowledge of technological aspect of the trade. I hope, by reading his blog, I learn a lot in this area. He also takes a great deal of time siting books and articles on the subject of learning and instruction, and it was pleasant for me to find some recently leaned terms and names in his posts, like in this one: Constructivist training for Online Teachers. It is a good site for leaning about technology, books, and latest news and ideas in education.

2. Dina Kennenedy's Blog called "Mrs. P's Blog", http://mrspritchard.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/in-what-ways-does-american-education-and-education-in-america-have-meaning-for-me/ - I liked the author. I think her outlook is very much in sync with mine. I like how passionately she talks about America and about diversity. "Horace Mann was a pioneer that believed that education needed to be universal, be the financial responsibility of the public and he dreamed that school would be a place for all to learn to be citizens". Dona is also a student, and seems excited about it. There is a lot of interesting material on her blog. I'm also feeling more comfortable to comment on her posts.

3. Patrick Higgins, Jr. and his "Chalkdust101", http://chalkdust101.wordpress.com/2010/, is the third site I found interesting. The author gives a worm feeling of a dedicated teacher, who is genuinely interested in today's young generation, fascinated by them. He has a great sense of humor, and shares a lot of insights about today's technologically enhanced education. I did not have time to read a lot of entries in his blog, but am definitely going to do that: it is a an easy read with a lot of useful information. He also quotes many of his colleagues, like here:"We are probably the last generation that will make the distinction between being online and not being online".