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Over the past few years of my time in the blogosphere, I’ve seen some blogs come and go. I’ve seen some great ones start up and hopefully even been able to send out some positive blogging encouragement to some of these folks in the process, either via Twitter or by linking to their blogs. Whatever the case, it’s always encouraging to see new bloggers start into the effort.

With all things, there are numerous people who start out but simply fail to follow through. It’s just the human propensity we have for starting something new and moving on after it loses its newness. I’ve had times in my blogging where the thought crossed my mind and even camped out for a while.

Teachers quit teaching.
Twitter accounts remain untweeted.
Bloggers quit blogging.
MySpace (thankfully) shuts down.

What’s that? MySpace hasn’t shut down yet? Wow…I guess sometimes you just need to keep beating the dead horse even after it’s double-dead, and then some more…

Anyway, back on topic. I want to introduce you to a few EduBlogs that have recently started up in the last year or so that appear to show some promise. Hopefully these bloggers can continue their blogging journey!

Teacher Reboot Camp
Written by  Shelley Terrell, Teacher Reboot Camp‘s mission statement is:

To “collaborate on strategies for engaging all our students through effective instructional methods and technology.”

Fantastic stuff. She started her blog in May of 2009, but really has amped it up as we got into 2010. I have enjoyed a lot of the links that she shares on Twitter as well as reading her blog as I get opportunities to do so. The blog lists some of her favorite posts, some of my favorites are:

• Do We See the Beauty in Every Student?
• How Do We Nurture Passion?
• PRESTO: How to Build A PLN Using Twitter

MusicEdMajor.net
MusicEdMajor.net is, as its name implies, a blog geared toward college Music Education majors. It fills an incredible void for many music students where there are plenty of EduBlogs out there, as well as plenty of Music blogs. But many of them relate more toward the administrative side of things. College music students really don’t need to know much about Bad and good ways to defend social foundations and reform teacher education or Additional thoughts on the Wiimote Whiteboard when they are about go to observe a middle school band rehearsal. Both are fantastic in the right time and place, but having a list of 5 Low-Stress Ways to Stay Musically Active Over the Summer may end up more beneficial to the music student. Other favorites from the site include:

• Top Apps for Music Ed Majors
• How to Stay Productive: Part 2-Keep a Calendar
• Practicing 101 for Music Ed Majors

Classroom Book of the Week
While this won’t apply to teachers of many disciplines, Classroom Book of the Week looks like a resource that pretty much any general elementary teacher can find useful at least once in a while. Author Kate Narita describes the site:

I am an author, curriculum guide consultant, and a teacher. Each week this blog features a Multiple Intelligences unit for the primary or intermediate elementary classroom based on a recently published children’s book. Author interviews include information about the writing process and the Six Traits of Writing.

She also includes a shipping address for readers to submit books for review as well as email contact info to encourage follow-up questions and offer her services to help develop curricula.

Look at my happy rainbow!
Matthew Halpern lives the perfect bloggable life ever! Hence, Look at my happy rainbow exists.

I’m a man. I teach kindergarten. Doing the second makes me better at the first. I follow the Responsive Classroom philosophy. I try to find the joy in teaching and something to love about each sprout (not always easy, but that is my job). People say teaching is the hardest job you’ll ever love – it’s true for me. A friend of mine told me there is a special place for kindergarten teachers in heaven… I get to experience a little bit of that everyday I’m in the classroom already so I consider myself doubly lucky.

Though he doesn’t have any “Best of” type lists, I just ran through some of the interesting tags and selected a few posts that just SOUND cool!

• Pirates.
• Forever Young (or how teaching kindergarten is like an 80′s song).
• Sometimes you have to do the Happy Dance.

i want to teach in texas
i want to teach in texas is a brand new blog (started in March) written by April Michelle Floyd, who appears to be a college student. I just found this blog and I think I really like it (not only because she’s in Texas, but that definitely helps her cause)! It’s fun. I love this post entitled 3 Words That Describe Education:

As I look around the blog a little more, I realize that most of what she has posted are just reposts of other site’s stuff. Again, the blog is very young and she has some good ideas. Hopefully with time, April will refine her writing and focus more on quoting small segments of the articles and then adding her own thoughts rather than just cutting and pasting. I’m giving her the befit of the doubt though, since I really do like the direction she’s headed…

So what about you?
What’s your favorite fledgling blog out there? Share in the comments…

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