(ARA) – Gifted students have abilities that can astound their teachers and parents alike. Keeping gifted children challenged and interested in their studies requires having resources at your fingertips. Online Degrees has come to the rescue with its recently released list of the top 10 gifted education blogs.
Controversies concerning educating gifted kids are varied, including at what age to let them enter school. If they are academically ready, are they emotionally and socially ready? Colorado’s 2009 state law allowing gifted children early entrance to kindergarten or first grade has generated quite a discussion. Knowing what to do with your gifted child becomes easier with the Internet. It has tons of information for gifted education, and this list of top 10 blogs is a great place to start. The blogs vary quite a bit – they range from teacher focused to parent focused, from U.S. focused to international, and from commercial help to do-it-yourself resources.
For example, The Gifted Kids Network blog – with its many links to resources – is essentially a portal into lesson plans, classes and tools for students and teachers. Prufrock’s Gifted Child Information blog, authored by an educator with more than 20 years experience with gifted education, contains activities, games and links to the latest articles.
Although the High Ability blog is managed by the Ohio Association of Gifted Children and is regionally focused, its content is universal in its advocacy toward gifted children. Teach a Gifted Child blog is written by a teacher passionate about gifted education and has lists and lists of links to resources – everything from suggested books to family and friends blogs to teacher and techie blogs.
The author of the Gifted Child Information blog is a gifted education consultant. She writes deeply and passionately about how to meet the needs of gifted children and offers an infinite number of tips. The Apoxyomenos and the Lesson of Biomineralization blog, despite its mysterious name, features blog posts from a mother who surprisingly found herself with three gifted children and describes how she rose to the adventure.
The Gifted Exchange blog is full of current events and encourages discussions on gifted educational practices. The Ingeniosus blog comes from a firm that provides marketing communications services for public school districts, private gifted schools and other gifted organizations. It shares a broad view of many helpful resources.
Two of the blogs, Irish Gifted Education and Gifted Phoenix, are international, Ireland and the U.K. respectively. They provide insights on their countries’ experience with gifted children and include discussions on the parental role in gifted education.
Social networking with Twitter and Facebook
Many of the blogs on the top 10 list also take advantage of social networking, so joining groups such as Facebook and Twitter reinforces what you will find on the blogs. They provide a great forum for exchanging ideas and providing support to one another.
Online learning for teachers
Online learning offers opportunities for teachers of gifted children. Whether you want to take a few classes to sharpen your knowledge of gifted education, or pursue another degree pertaining to gifted education, obtaining online teaching degrees and taking classes online allows you to continue teaching while you advance your own education.
Fostering your gifted child’s learning takes a lot of extra effort, but by going online to get more information and network with other parents and teachers who face the same challenges, the task may just become a little less formidable.