I’m planning on handling my year-end “The Best…” lists a little differently this year, and wanted to share my tentative plan and, ideally, receive reader feedback. This plan is certainly not set in stone.

Starting at the beginning of September, I’m planning on sharing one major “The Best…” list each month:

September: The Best Online Learning Games — 2008

October: The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008

November: The Best Internet Sites For English Language Learners — 2008

December: The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008

Each list will have approximately thirty sites that I will be ranking based on my own judgment and experience.

I’m also interested in experimenting with the “wisdom of crowds.” So, each list will be set-up as a poll that will allow votes from the same IP address, but be restricted by “cookies” so, theoretically, people will be blocked from voting twice.

My thought is to leave each poll open for two months so both teachers and students can participate in voting for no more than ten choices in each list.  I thought that would give teachers enough time to incorporate this into their lesson plans if they so chose.  There could then be a sort of a People’s Choice (Student’s & Teacher’s Choice?) Awards for the top ten vote-getters in each list.

I thought it would be interesting, and educational, for teachers to involve their students in trying-out these sites and determining which ones they thought would be the ten best. I could certainly see my students getting a lot out of it, including wrestling with developing their own criteria about which ones constitute the best sites.

I’d probably also come-up with a few other year-end lists that wouldn’t necessarily engage readers in voting.

What do you think?