There are no problems with links leading to resources I blog about, only occasionally with ones that link internally to my blog, and only for Facebook readers and email subscribers.

So please be patient for awhile until my presently scheduled posts finish-up. Now that I know what the problem is, any new posts that I write will not have that problem.

I’d like to do it again this year.

Feel free to leave your recommendations in the comment section of this blog and I’ll hold them in moderation until I print the whole list.

The books could have been published earlier. The only requirement is that you’ve read them sometime this year. They might not be obviously connected to education — just briefly explain how it is connected in your mind.

Please leave the title of the book; author’s name; why you like the book (or books) so much — please keep the explanation to no more than two or three sentences; and how you’d like me to describe you.

Deadline — December 30th.

That same link will give you information on how to make your own nominations.

You can see who I nominated here.

Best Individual Blog

Public School Insights by Claus von Zastrow posts excellent reports on what’s happening in schools around the country, and provides essential critical reflection on what is being done, or should be done, in the name of “school reform.”

Best Individual Tweeter

Again, I’m making two nominations.  Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) not only sends out a ton of useful tweets, but works hard to develop a sense of community among educators on Twitter. And I can same the same thing about my other nominee — Shelly Terrell.

Best New Blog

I have two nominees here, too:

David Kapuler has done a fabulous job at his blog Technology Tidbits. Not only does he share new ed tech resources, his interview series with bloggers has been very informative.

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice has contributed a great deal of insight to what’s going on in schools today, and what should be going on there tomorrow.

Best Class Blog

I’m going to be a little self-interested here. I’m pretty impressed (if I say so myself) by the work that my colleague, Katie Hull, the students in our two Intermediate ESL classes, and I have done with our Intermediate English class blog.

Best Resource Sharing Blog

Kevin Jarrett’s Welcome To NCS-Tech may be the “Dean” of all education resource bloggers, and continues to churn-out posts about helpful resources.

I had been planning on nominating Paul Hamilton’s blog, but, unfortunately, he hasn’t been posting a lot lately.  I hope he’ll be able to get back in the groove again so I can nominated him next year!

I nominated Richard Byrne last year and, since he won, I figured it might be good to give someone else a chance this year.  Richard, of course, has continued to do excellent work.

Best Teacher Blog

I’m nominating two here:

Alice Mercer is my Sacramento colleague who writes great posts about both educational policy and the day-to-day life in a classroom. The name of her blog is Reflections On Teaching.

David Deubelbeiss has got to be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, ESL/EFL teachers in the world, and his blog has to be on my list.

Best Librarian/Library Blog

Joyce Valenza at the Never Ending Search shares incredibly useful resources and insights.

Best Educational Tech Support Blog

This is a toughie.  Sue Waters at The Edublogger would be a definite nominee here, but I know it was ruled out last year because of a “conflict of interest” (which I’m not convinced is correct since it would just be one of many in that category and people can vote for whom they want).

If that prohibition is still in effect, I’d like to nominate two blogs:

Langwitches is on many of my “The Best…” lists, and is a great source for links and practical advice. Silvia Tolisano does an exceptional job.

The other is Tom Barrett – for his “Most Interesting Ways” series

Best Educational Use Of A Social Networking Service

Here, again I’m nominating two:

EFL Classroom 2.0, which has a community of thousands of ESL/EFL teachers from all around the world.

English Companion Ning, which has also brought together thousands of teachers.

I look forward to learning about other great blogs.  Nominations are open until December 8th!

Nominations will be accepted until December 8th.

I’m just going to reprint the announcement in its entirety here (I’ll be posting my own nominations soon):

Now into their 6th year, The Edublog Awards have just opened nominations for 2009.

The awards are open to anyone – bloggers, podcasters, tweeters, online communities, video bloggers, teachers, administrators, students and more!

And nominating an outstanding blog, post, podcast or tweet couldn’t be easier.

1. Check out the nomination categories on the front page of The Edublog Awards
2. Write a post making your nominations
3. Send us a link to that post using the contact form on the bottom of the homepage

For example:

e.g.
Subject: Edublogs 2009 Nominations
Body: Here are my nominations for the 2009  Edublog Awards: http://myblogname.com/2008-nominations/

Here are all the categories you can nominate for:

Best individual blog
Best individual tweeter
Best group blog
Best new blog
Best class blog
Best student blog
Best resource sharing blog
Most influential blog post
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
Best teacher blog
Best librarian / library blog
Best educational tech support blog
Best elearning / corporate education blog
Best educational use of audio
Best educational use of video / visual
Best educational wiki
Best educational use of a social networking service
Best educational use of a virtual world
Lifetime achievement

Happy nominating!

However, even though I’ve added to each of the lists, and tried to remove sites that no longer exist, I haven’t adjusted any of the rankings on many of them since they were first posted — I’ve just added new ones to the bottom of each post.

So, in 2010, I’ll be revisiting many of them and revising the rankings. Stay tuned for many new and improved “The Best…” lists!

ELL Classroom hosted the thirteenth edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Carnival. Jennifer Duarte and Michelle Klepper did an amazing job! ESL/EFL bloggers from around the world contributed thoughtful posts about issues related to teaching and learning English, and it’s not to be missed.

Future hosts will include Shelly Terrell at Teacher Reboot Camp: Challenging Ourselves to Engage Our Students on February 1st and Karenne Sylvester at Kalinago English: Teaching Speaking Using Technology on April 1st.

You can see all the previous editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.

The vast majority of time I’ll respond quickly with a direct email. If it looks like it’ll create a public conversation helpful to other readers, I’ll also include a response in the comments section of the post, too.

Though I’ll often publish comments from people publicizing their productions, I typically don’t respond to them.

People can also contact me directly through several other ways, all laid-out in the Contact Me section at the top of this blog.

ELL Classroom hosted the thirteenth edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Carnival. Jennifer Duarte and Michelle Klepper did an amazing job! ESL/EFL bloggers from around the world contributed thoughtful posts about issues related to teaching and learning English, and it’s not to be missed.

Future hosts will include Shelly Terrell at Teacher Reboot Camp: Challenging Ourselves to Engage Our Students on February 1st and Karenne Sylvester at Kalinago English: Teaching Speaking Using Technology on April 1st.

You can see all the previous editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.

I’ve been sending it out for three years, and have about six hundred subscribers now. You can see all the past issues here, and subscribe to it here.