As the year wraps up, take a look at the winners of this year’s International Edublog Awards. In true digital fashion, the awards ceremony was held on the Island of Jokaydia – in Second Life. Since a large part of the Digital Native project’s goal is to engage educators in a discussion about the digital world, it’s very encouraging to see these teachers taking the initiative.

All dressed up for the Edublog Awards. From the Flikr photo pool.

The winners of the awards range from Second Life classrooms to class wikis to teacher blogs. I’ll let the winners themselves do the talking, so here’s the list. What I find particularly noteworthy is the fact that teachers are not only collaborating with students online but, like their students, are collaborating with each other. As teachers adopt the same methods as their students, the dialogue should be able to more easily find a common denominator.

Digital education is one of the areas that has plenty of untapped potential. I would say that most of my classmates, who are otherwise immersed in digital technologies such as IM or Facebook, are still uncomfortable with wikis or blogs. Many courses already utilize blogs and forums as an extension of classroom discussion, but they are never very successful. Is this a reflection of our old- fashioned “analog habits” that will no longer exist in future generations or a fundamental need for face to face interaction when comes to learning? To what extent will digital technology replace real life classrooms in the future? If initiatives like MIT’s open course ware can be expanded, will all lectures and discussions happen online? Questions to ponder for the New Year.