The Edublog Awards are probably the closest thing we have in the Edublogosphere to an “Oscar” ceremony, but I wonder if I’m the only one thinking that there is something missing? What I want to know is, why there aren’t categories for pupil entries… and is it time to start a separate Awards ceremony for the great work done by pupils?

It’s always an honour to be given recognition for good work. It is a vindication of your efforts, and in the education sphere, it is also an acknowledgement that you are making a genuine and positive difference to the lives of those you are responsible for educating. Events like the Edublogs Award ceremony are a fantastic and worthwhile idea, not least because they introduce you to new people and ideas from the world of education. I really can’t fault the whole process (even though I think that Don or Ewan should have won their category! ) …but…

I was very disappointed to see the lack of representation of student work. If you’re involved in edublogging then you are unlikely to have missed the launch tomorrow of Student2.0. This attempt to give students a genuine forum where they can give an end-users view of Education2.0 is, I hope, the thin end of the wedge. However, it did remind me that the categories in the Edublog Awards are geared to the educators… they highlight the pedagogy and practitioners… they reward the good teachers… they do not praise and celebrate the innovative and incredible work being done by the pupils…

I think we now have enough pupils and students and learners producing blogs and wikis and goodness knows all what to justify having an Awards Ceremony to celebrate their work. I think that we have to realise that the pupils and students deserve to have their work praised and recognised on a national and international scale, and there is no intrinsic reason why this should not be the case… so I have an idea!

Awards2.0

I propose that we should set up an awards ceremony to celebrate and share the great work being done by the people we are educating….
It should be open to any pupil or group of pupils, anywhere, in any language…
The categories could be based on those used in the Edublog Awards, with suitable additions…
The results should be decided by pupil and educator voting…
Students and educators should be allowed to nominate entries, with a final nomination list selected by a panel of suitably qualified judges (made up of students and educators)…
I don’t necessarily think there should be prizes per se, the awards should be a means of recognition rather than an incentive…
I think we should get started on this idea now!

How…

My initial thought is to aim to hold the award ceremony in September during the Scottish Learning Festival. This is one of the best education conferences anywhere in the world, and has a strong history of focussing on education rather than being a trade show. It has a superb and dedicated ‘Education Village’ which illustrates the work being done in Scotland, but the SLF has always had a very strong international flavour. As such, I think it would be a superb venue to have a ‘real’ awards ceremony which would also be shared live online using a variety of tools such as Second Life, uStream and GLOW….

What do you think?

I know this is no more than an idea at the moment, but it is one which I believe has merit and which should be developed. I am willing to coordinate the idea if you think it has potential, and I already have a few ideas for potential support. I’d love to know what you think, and would appreciate it if you could leave any comments and ideas here at the moment. Similarly, I’d appreciate it if you could pass this post on to anyone you think might be interested in the idea.

What next?

Initially, I want to see if there is enough interest in the idea, but I’ll move to a wiki to start hammering out the details later… so, please give this some thought, and use the comments to make your suggestions about any aspect of the idea… and please take the time to talk about this with your students and pupils…. after all, we know they have something worth saying so isn’t it about time we started listening and recognising this?

Categories: ScotLearnFest07, Second Life, Social Media, TeachMeet07
Tags: awards, pupil blogs, scotlearnfest08, student2.0