Oh, it’s such an exciting time of year.  Not only is it time for the annual Educator’s PLN Holiday Gift Exchange (have you signed up?), but it’s also time for EduBlog Award nominations!

In 2008, the DEN in Second Life won for best educational use of a virtual world.  Since then, we’ve had a slew of STARs nominated, and several have been winners.  But we haven’t made much of a push for the community itself in the past.  We’re proud just to have so many of our members honored through the Eddies.

However, this year there are two categories that I think the DEN most certainly deserves to not only be nominated for, but to win in a landslide:

• Best Group Blog: Since we migrated formats, I can honestly say that the DEN Global blog is far and away the best group blog in the EduVerse.  Whether you grade based on quality, quantity, or value to visitors, our Leadership Council bloggers are doing an unbelievable job and absolutely deserve to be recognized for their efforts.  So I hereby nominate http://denblogs.com/ for the Best Group Blog!
• Best Open PD / Unconference / Webinar Series:  This is a tough one.  Do I nominate any of our 3 virtual conferences for the best open PD?  Or do I nominate any of our webinars/live broadcasts for best webinar series?  For example, in the past year we hosted live broadcasts with the US Secretary of Labor, Hilda L Solis, Michio Kaku who discussed the tsunami in Japan, and a special event with Ben Rhodes from the White House after the death of Osama Bin Laden.   More than 1600 classrooms attended that last one alone.  But that’s just a small fraction of the webinars Discovery Education offers.  When all is said and done, we host literally hundreds of free webinars for teachers and students every year.  If that doesn’t merit an EduBlog award, then I don’t know what does!  So with that, I hereby nominate Discovery Education (http://www.discoveryeducation.com/Webinars/2.cfm) for the Best Open PD / Unconference /Webinar #Eddie award!