I've come close a couple of times but this is the first award I've ever received. I was nominated by Andy McKiel. Andy was unanimously voted in as the new President of ManACE tonight. They also honoured Cheryl Prokopanko (provincial coordinator for Literacy with ICT for the Ministry of Education) with a well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award. Cheryl is a passionate educator committed to helping other teachers learn how to weave technology into their teaching practice and create more opportunities for students to become successful, ethical, lifelong learners. Last year John Evans was the recipient of Educator of the Year Award; I'm in some pretty august company.

This was also the ManACE Annual General Meeting. I got to observe some of the inner workings of the organization. I mentioned to John, as we were leaving, how I was struck by the dedication of this group of educators. Brian Metcalfe, who retired last year as the technology consultant for my school division, was also there. It was wonderful to see him again. His presence really underscored the commitment folks have to ManACE; retirement is no obstacle to the work they do together. In my brief acceptance comments I encouraged the membership of ManACE to participate in the upcoming K12 Online 2008 conference.

I'm honoured to receive the Educator of the Year Award and wanted to publicly thank the board of directors and members of MANACE. In particular, I wanted to thank Andy McKiel; for nominating me, for the kind words he shared about me, and his continued efforts in helping make 21st century education accessible to teachers and students across the province. We've already begun talking about Manitoba EduBloggerCon 2008.

This came as a bolt from the blue. I didn't even know about the awards until I received an email from Lani congratulating me on my nomination for Best Education Blog. (Thanks Lani!) I'm in some pretty august company in the education category.

All nominees are entered in Round 1. After a week, voting takes place again in Round 2; the final round. The list of nominees is reduced to the top 5 and Round 2 voting determines the winner.

The awards are quite far reaching with nominees from almost 30 different categories across the Canadian blogosphere. Check out the awards site and, if you're so inclined, you can participate in the "Round 1 Vote" for your favourite Canadian Education blog here. Poke around the other categories too. There's lots of good Canadian blogging to explore and learn from. ;-)

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UPDATE: January 23, 2008

The finalists have been announced and I made the first cut in the Education Category. ;-) Thanks to everyone who voted for me and congratulations to the other finalists which include my friends Clarence and Alec.

On to Round 2. The competition looks to be stiff. ;-) Voting is here.

The Eddies are up and running. 20 different categories, a new blog and domain and a new logo. The nominations are open. Vote soon and vote often.

Yesterday morning (in Winnipeg) EdTechTalk hosted the awards ceremonies for the 2006 EduBlog Awards. K12 Online 2006 won in the category of Best Post, Resource or Presentation. Sheryl, Wes and I have said to each other many times: "This is really a win for the broad cross section of the edublogging community that came together to make it such a success." -- Congratulations, and thank you.

I neglected to mention one person who worked tirelessly and quietly behind the scenes. Without her poise, charm, sensitivity and class, K12 Online would have been less than it was: Lani Ritter-Hall. Thanks Lani, this is as much your win as anyone else's; both as a presenter and a volunteer who gave unselfishly of your time and energy for the benefit of us all.

On another note I just finished reading Graham Wegner's reflection of the results of this year's Eddies. He's got mixed feelings after looking through the stats published on the Awards site.

Personally, I don't attach too much significance to these stats. The percentages would be a little more interesting if we also knew the total number of votes cast, but even then, I don't think it would be terribly relevant. The fact of a blog's nomination is the most significant datum here.

In order to be nominated your site must be blindly and consistently chosen by many different people as one of the best in a category. One email address, one nomination per category (I think). For me, the whole exercise could be concluded when the nominees are announced. The annual list of nominees is a significant contribution to my personal learning network.

The voting process is such that one person can vote many, many times as long as they do so from different computers. (How many computer labs are in your school?) As a matter of fact, a knowledgeable computer user could vote many times from the same computer. (What do you know about "cookies?")

Now it's possible that someone might use many different email addresses to skew the nominations in their favour but given the amount of time and effort required to do that I think it unlikely. The ease with which one person can cast multiple votes makes that a far more likely practice.

Are people actually doing these things? I don't know. And I don't really care. Look, it's nice to win. I would have been happy to win in my category but that I didn't doesn't really bother me. In my view, the fact of my nomination carries far greater significance. I think the same is true for all the nominees. I wish nothing but the best to all the winners ... and congratulations to everyone who was nominated! You've earned the recognition of your peers. Peers who really understand what it is you've been doing. Bravo!

The winners and nominees are, or rather, my reading list for next little while is:

Best Audio and/or Visual Blog


absolutely intercultural! Anne Fox (Denmark), Laurent Borgmann (Germany)

• Classroom Displays


• iHistory Podcast Project


• TalkingVTE

Best Group Blog:


Polar Science 2006 YES I Can! Science team, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Diane Hammond, Susan Stiff, and Dr. Tom Stiff (Canada)

• Digital Chalkie


• Infinite Thinking Machine


• Teachers Teaching Teachers


• The Fisch Bowl

Best Individual Blog:


Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog Christopher D. Sessums (USA)

• 2¢ Worth


• alexanderhayes


• bgblogging


• Purse Lip Square Jaw

Most Influential Post, Resource or Presentation:


K12 Online Conference 2006 Darren Kuropatwa (Canada), Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (USA), Wes Fryer (USA)

• Barbara Ganley: Finding Our Way through the Edublogging Labyrinth


• danah boyd and Henry Jenkins: MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)


• Terry Freedman et al: Coming of Age

Best Library/ Librarian Blog:


Hey Jude Judy O’Connell (Australia)

• Deep Thinking


• Libraries Interact


• nja


• The L Files

Best Newcomer: (joint winners)


Ed Tech Journeys Pete Reilly (USA)


tilt! Paz Peña (Chile)

• Artichoke


• Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom


• missterri’s podcast

Best Research Paper:


Nancy White: Blogs and Community Nancy White (USA)

• Henry Jenkins et al: Confronting the challenges of participatory culture (PDF)


• Martin Owen et al: Social software and learning


• Ulises Mejias: Teaching social software with social software

Best Teacher Blog:


Have Fun with English! 2 Teresa Almeida d’Eça (Portugal)

• A Difference


• Borderland


• Cool Cat Teacher blog


• MITE 6323


• Teaching Generation Z

Best Undergraduate Blog:


CILASS Student Blog University of Sheffield Student Ambassadors of the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning In the Arts and Social Sciences (England)

• Be all that you can be


• Remstravels


• Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

Best Wiki:


Flat Classroom Project Vicki Davis (USA), Julie Lindsay (Bangladesh)

• APWH Wiki


• Classroom Google Earth


• David Warlick’s CoLearners Wiki


• Schome


• SupportBlogging

Edublog Star Award (Convenors choice):


Duck Diaries Barbara Cohen (USA)

This was a shocker.

I've been nominated for an Edublog Award 2006 in the category of Best Teacher Blog. The other teacher blogs in this category are simply outstanding. I'm privileged to be counted among them.

K12 Online 2006 was also nominated in the category of Most Influential Post, Resource or Presentation. Sheryl, Wes and I said to each other many times as we were planning the conference that the success of the conference is a function of the time, energy and effort contributed by the presenters and participants and many, many people like Lani-Ritter Hall and all the moderators for When Night Falls who worked behind the scenes to make it all happen. Although the nomination notification was sent to three of us, this is really a nomination for a whole lot of folks. Congratulations to everyone who helped make K12 Online such an overwhelming success. ;-)

K12 Online shares this nomination with other exceptionally high quality "Posts, Resources or Presentations." One of which is the collaboratively authoured ebook, edited by Terry Freedman, Coming of Age. I did not contribute to the first edition but I do have an article being published in the second edition coming out in January 2007.

Looking back, 2006 has been a blogging good year!

I'm grateful to everyone who nominated me in any category. My friend Ron used to always say to me: "Darr, you just never know who's looking at you." He was right. I really didn't expect any of this. Thanks.