Not only do they help inspire me to write better and work harder, their ideas present me with topics to think about – problems to solve. It’s in this dialogue – even if it sometimes seems one sided – that quality ideas germinate.

For your benefit and so that you can have an idea of where I’m coming from, here’s a selection of the education related blogs that I subscribe to and read on a regular basis.

• Teach42. Steve’s blog, Teach42, is one of the first ones that I started subscribing to. He focuses on technology and especially the way that Web 2.0 relates to classroom learning. It’s always a good place to keep up on the latest gadgets and trend in ed-tech.
• Weblogg-ed. Will’s blog at Weblogg-ed was another that I subscribed to early on. He’s also focused on tech, although he has a lot of great discussions about the nature of education in general. Great source for fresh ideas, and it reminds me of my more radical days in college.
• TechSavvyEd. Ben’s blog, TechSavvyEd, is another good read on the mix of education and technology.
• Tempered Radical. I just recently stumbled on this gem. Bill is a middle school language arts teacher (although he’s also referenced being a Social Studies teacher). He’s got some interesting insights into school reform – something of particular interest for a teacher like me at a not so well performing district.
• dy/dan. Dan is a math teacher, which wouldn’t normally interest me. However, his perspective as a young teacher like me is refreshing.
• Bionic Teaching. Tom has left the classroom for a job at central office, but he’s still got some useful thoughts. More on technology.

Most of what I read tends to be in the ed-tech vein. That’s not entirely bad – I’m really interested in technology – but I’d really like to find some quality feeds focused on social studies ed or literacy development.

If you know one, drop a note in the comment section and I’ll check it out.

An isolated writer is a stale, boring, and unproductive one. Other authors provide discussions to digest, problems to solve, things to learn. They are essential.

Most (all?) of the feeds in my Google Reader are related to one of the other three topics that I write about – education, web dev/publishing, and gaming.

Rather than copy the blogrolls here, I’ll just direct you to my other blogroll pages…

Teach Them Well – Reading Material: My Google Reader on Education.

Nerds at Play – Reading Material: My Google Reader on Gaming.

Nerds at Work – Reading Material: My Google Reader on Web Development, Design and Publishing.

Oddly enough, I haven’t found a good list of gaming related blogs to read. Back when I played WoW, I had plenty to weed through (BRK and Resto4Life were the top two). Since I quit, though, I cleared them out of my Google Reader. Reading about WoW on a daily basis would be too much temptation to return to the game – not something I look forward to doing.

In the meantime, I’ve looked for blogs about GW products – especially Warhammer Fantasy Battles – and I’ve come up empty handed. I found a few blogs about 40k, but none of them really held my interest.

If you write a Fantasy related blog or know of one that I might be interested in, let me know. It saddens me a bit that my reader is so empty.

I can only learn so much on my own – it helps to read what other people are struggling with and to try and tackle the same problems.

So that you know where I’m coming from, here’s a sampling of the sites that I follow regularly in Google Reader.

• CSS Globe. This massively popular site is a good source of information about CSS and, on occasion, Javascript. Particularly useful for me, who is much more adept at the development part of the web than the design part.
• CSS Tricks. Chris’s blog, CSS Tricks, is full of creative tricks and tutorials about CSS and Javascript.
• Query7. Tutorials on Javascript (JQuery) and PHP. It piques my interest as being more development focused, and especially useful since Javascript is one of my weak points.
• Noupe. A list site focused around design. Some of the posts are very useful (lists of JQuery plugins, images libraries, etc), while some are lackluster. Definitely worth having in your feedreader so that you don’t miss those quality lists.
• HeathenX. Great source for tutorials, in the form of screencasts, about InkScape.