Scott McLeod has released his annual list of the top 50 education blogs. Once again, Change Agency is not on the list. I’ve never written about this because I never felt the need to harp on the issue of “top # of blogs” lists, but today I guess I feel the desire to do so. Before I start, let me say that I respect Scott very much and I enjoy reading his blog. He has great things to say and I enjoy learning from and with him. He is a very intelligent educator, and I understand and respect his motivation/interest in developing his list. 
However… about those lists…
As Scott points out in his blog post about the list, there are more than a few similar lists out on the Web and there are many different ways that one can generate a list. There are various metrics we can use, and the lists can change depending on what search terms we use when filtering results.
Change Agency is on at least a couple of these lists — but not all of them. Do I care? Not really.
Sure, it’s nice be on a list of the “top blogs,” but is that why I’m blogging? Am I blogging just so I can be “on the list”? Nope. Never has been my motivation and never will be my motivation.
I don’t need to be on a list to validate that my blogging is beneficial to me or to others. The comments and emails exchanged between myself and other educators who have stumbled across my blog are enough of an indicator to me that what I am doing has value and makes some sort of difference personally and within my profession.
I blog because I enjoy this reflective and connective writing process that allows me to learn with and from others. I blog because I learn more about my thoughts and ideas and experiences when other people chime in with their opinions and insights. I blog because it helps me to connect with other like-minded educators who push me and challenge me to think more deeply about the issues and challenges we face.
I blog for the connections and the networking, the collaborations, and the learning.
Why do you blog or read blogs? What are your thoughts about the various “lists” that have been created?
Technorati Tags: blogging, edublogs, education, lists
Change Agency by Stephanie Sandifer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You may copy, distribute, transmit and/or remix this content for noncommercial uses as long as you attribute the work to Stephanie Sandifer (with link back to the original post) and agree to license the work under the same or similar license.
