Post Rank uses a variety of ways to measure levels of “engagement” that readers have with specific blog posts.  Recently, they’ve begun a system to tabulate this data and develop lists of the most popular blogs in many different categories. The rankings are adjusted each week or so.

I thought it would be useful — both to me and readers of this blog — to do a quick review of the top five blogs in several categories that might be useful to those of us in the education field.

I have the phrase “most popular” in quotation marks because, of course, Post Rank’s system is just one of several ways that you can gauge “popularity.”  I’d just use this list as an opportunity to explore some new blogs.

Sue Waters, the person whom I most respect in the education blogosphere, raises a “red flag” about Post Rank:

“My argument still remains that PostRank’s system of ranking importance of most popular posts is flawed so would hate to think how they are determining what’s the most popular blogs in each category.

The trouble with all these systems is that people see the words “Most popular” and don’t stop to consider the statistics and methods used to provide the ranking. If the underlying system is flawed then the list is.

What is the solution? Not sure. If technorati was working properly than its a better reflection as is number of subscribers using Feedburner.  Until someone gets PostRank to properly explain properly how they are determining what’s the most popular blogs in each category I believe we should be viewing their data with extreme caution. And while it is okay to use their data I would be emphasizing strongly this aspect.”

Given those caveats, here are (in my view — in that I’ve chosen the categories –and in Post Rank’s view since its their rankings) The “Most Popular” Blogs That Might Also Useful To Educators (the heading of each section is a live link that will take you to the complete listing and ranking of blogs in that category) They’re also in the order that I thought of them or discovered them — which means the categories aren’t in any order at all:


1. Free Technology For Teachers

2. Live Science

3. This blog, Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites Of The Day…

4. Angela Maiers

5. Computer Science Teacher


1. Discovery News

2. The List Universe

3. Damn Interesting

4. On This Day In History

5. Strange Maps


1. Science Blogs

2. Pharyngula

3. Environmental News

4. Discover

5. National Geographic News


1. The Math Factor

2. Scientific American

3. Math or Mathematics

4. Natural Blogarithms

5. Better Explained

WEB 2.0

1. Read Write Web

2. Silicon Alley Insider

3. The Sky of Daemon!

4. O’Reilly Radar

5. Epicenter


1. Science Blogs

2. Quick Online Tips

3. Techie Buzz

4. Mashable

5. Read Write Web


1. Web Urbanist

2. Laughing Squid

3. Ads Of The World

4. Design Sponge

5. Yanko Design



2. New York Times — Business

3. New York Times — Technology

4. New York Times — Homepage

5. Times of India


1. Business Pundit

2. Harvard Business

3. The Oil Drum

4. paid Content

5. Freakonomics Blog


1. Engadget

2. Gizmodo

3. eHome Upgrade

4. Boing Boing Gadgets

5. Gadget Lab


1. Geek Dad

2. Science News For Kids

3. Play Library

4. Discovery Health

5. Queen Of Spain Blog


1. Seth’s Blog

2. How To Change The World

3. Advice and Opinion

4. The Long Tail

5. Sanders Says


1. Bibliobsession 2.0

2. The Noisy Channel

3. Library Link of the Day

4. The Distant Librarian

5. McSweeney’s