Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

USA Today has a great article on the evolution of education and the impact of Google on what we deem as important issues to memorize. I believe this is a must read for all educators as we grapple with curriculum changes in light of information that can often be more readily accessed through Google than remembered. Again, we must ask ourselves, what is important for students to know?

The Savvy Technologist lists an update on his podcave (His flickr picture is shown to the right.) He writes about his new gadgets for where he creates his podcast. He didn't list prices, so I've done a little research for those interested in a more professional setup. The Heil 3 boom is $89 - I don't list the link b/c the advertising is a little risque for my linking interests. The RE 20 Microphone - When I googled it, I found prices in the mid $400 range The model 309 shockmount is available on eBay and currently selling for around $70 These just seem to be the new microphone items, I do not know about the other items in his "podcave." For now, I think I'll have to stick with my $6 Wal-Mart microphone and free audacity software. It's the holidays, I can dream.

Ewan McIntosh from Scotland has a great article on why it is essential for educators to blog and to read blogs. I agree with him totally. We as educators cannot rely solely on what we learned in college. Many experienced educators say that they have practical knowledge on what works. Not enough. What if you can combine practical knowledge with current research? Talk about a Lethal Weapon! By subscribing to the best educational minds and participating in online discussions, you simulate much the same environment as a college classroom. But this is so much more than a college classroom! This is the world classroom! Join in! I never would have read an educator from Scotland's writings much less learned from him. Now I'm reading a fellow from overseas and finding myself inspired! I challenge educators everywhere -- while on break -- set up a bloglines account and subscribe to some blogs. You can see what I'm reading by going to http://www.bloglines.com/blog/coolcatte...

There are so many new web aps that I have on my list to try over the break, that I doubt I will get them all. Today I am composing on a cool new web app called writely.com . This is an online word processor with all of the basics that a student would need. So many of my students struggle because they have Works or Word perfect and can't afford to purchase the $300 Office package (or know about the student discount they can get.) The converters in Word don't work very well for Works and Word Perfect. This is a great solution for these students! They can log onto writely.com and create an account. They can then create and edit documents. They can even collaborate with other students if it is a group project. The difference here between this and a wikipage is that writely is a word processor. This program will import and export into Word format! Until the produce the final word document, they can edit from any computer where they can log onto writely.com. This is a ...

I have been reading a recent post by Dave on 2cents worth about what has honestly changed in education. This confirms the basic premise of the technology curriculum we've built at our school. Dave says, "Our Tools are Changing — Technology is changing at dizzying rates, which is part of the reason for the preceding elements of change, but also a good reason why we should be focused on the information and not the technology. We can’t keep up with making the technology the curriculum. All we can do is prepare our students to teach themselves. It’s the only way to keep up. " One of the primary strategies that I use in my classroom is that of what I call the student-teaching method. If we are in Microsoft Word, I assign the lessons to groups. Each group's job is to work ahead and do the lesson and I grade their work. They then are responsible for presenting and instructing the class (I fill in the gaps, make points, etc.) assist the class in the work (along with m...

I'm excited about my school wikispace being named wikispace of the month. Here is the blurb from their e-mail. They will be posting the article to their website this week. The students are also thrilled. Excerpt from Wikispace monthly e-mail: 3. Space of the Month: Westwood ------------------------------ - Westwood is the Wikispaces Space of the Month for December 2005. http://westwood.wikispaces.com Our Space: We began to use our wikispace as the companion to our Computer Science curriculum but are expanding it for use in Computer Fundamentals, Keyboarding, and Computer Graphic Design. We started with one page ( http://westwood.wikispaces.com /Web+2.0 ) where I posted words relating to Web 2.0. I divided the students into groups and had them collaboratively research their topic on the Internet, summarize their findings, and link to their sources. I have found that it is the perfect tool to help students summarize and synthesize information! Every student, regardless of ability ...

I was talking to the mother of two of my better students. She told me how much it means that I am showing them useful, meaningful technology. They spent all last weekend making wikispaces for their year thus far in English. She said her girls told her, "Mom, I'm not doing this for Mrs. Vicki, I'm doing this for me - - I need to have my material together so that I can review for the AP English exam my senior year so I am going to put all of my material on the wikispace . Everyone else can edit and improve it and it just becomes better - this is the way I am going to succeed ." I know my readers may be tired of my blogging on about creating wikipages . But honestly, it has created more buzz at my school and more excitement about learning than all of the other tools I've taught this year. I'm using it for one of my semester exam projects and couldn't be more pleased. Think about using it in your classroom next year. (in three weeks)

With the John Seingthaler Wikipedia scandal , we must again remember to teach our students that the Internet is quite different from the papers they write in the classroom. If they write unsubstantiated information in a paper - they may or may not get an F. If they write inaccurate information online - they may lose their job, or their credibility. I talked with my eighth grade students today about Myspace. Three quarters of them have an account -- none of them realized all of their information was viewable to everyone out there. I discussed how they have put their information on the "public domain." They didn't even know what that was. I think that the laws we have to protect children must extend that to the Internet. We would not let our children stand on a busy street corner talking to strangers -- but we are letting them share their information with the world. I wonder how many parents have read their children's myspace. Today one school superintendant sent...

I have been learning about the various tools to get the load off of me as webmaster of our school website . Recently, I attended a class on Macromedia Contribute and I was impressed. However, I dreaded the installation, training, and other work that always comes with software. Then, I stumbled upon several websites that have made it easy to keep the school website updated -- with only my limited involvement. These use a relatively new technology called RSS feeds . They are: RSS Calendar - www.rsscalendar.com -- The front office staff, always looking for ways to improve things, updates the calendar. We used categories so that news feed readers can subscribe to just the calendars they need. Check out our website at www.westwoodschools.org -- the calendar on the right and on the calendar pages comes directly from the online calendar. And when I say fast - I mean fast -- it updates immediately! That is two hours off my plate a week! Flickr - www.flickr.com -- I am using this to a...

Well, I'm quite impressed. My sophomores are still updating their study hall page at http://studyhall.wikispaces.com/ and we're into day 4 with no requests nor grades from me. They have also worked to create study notes for their biology test which they have linked to at http://studyhall.wikispaces.com/biology+notes+1-8. This is the amazing thing I am noticing - these students really are collaborating! It is not just one student doing the updating. They are taking turns and working together! Students who are weaker in the organizational skills are saying that this is a lifesaver! The other interesting thing happening is that students are inviting and training other students not in my computer science class. It will be interesting to see if there is a reflection in the class grades overall. I have taught web design for four years but I have never seen a space evolve as quickly as these wikispaces. It is a great concept worth exploring more! Impressive so far! Very easy...

Keywords: Podcast Education Computers I was listening to Mike Hetherington from Connecticut and his 6th grade podcast today. As we learned about Web 2.0 and my students discussed podcasting . ( View their wikipage to learn .) This week my students and I created two first podcasts -- you can hear them at: Overview of Podcasting Subscribing to podcasts using iTunes I am struck with the particular usefulness of podcasts for helping students synthesize and summarize information as well as engaging and providing review materials for auditory learners. If you want to know how to podcast, just review my simple steps for podcasting . I put this up for my students who wanted to do it for free from home. Students can be assigned a section of material and asked to write a 2 - 3 minute script. They should create a wiki page to summarize information ( see yesterday's article ) and then record their podcast. They will then upload and link the podcast to their review page for other stud...

See Wiki Wiki Teaching - The art of using wiki pages to teach (Remix) - March 15, 2011 I have got to have a place on the net to express what some may consider revolutionary teaching ideas. For my first blog on this topic, I want to write about my amazing impressions of what I will call " wiki wiki teaching. " "Wiki wiki" means "quickly" in Hawaiian. I came back from the GAETC conference and had attended three amazing sessions with David Warlick . I had devoured his book, his website, and had begun to implement his recommendations. I was excited, but not yet floored. Well, I signed up for a free wikispace at wikispaces.com and began to train my students how to use wikispaces. I did a simple project -- I gave my computer science students six words to define using resources on the net so that they could understand the emerging concept of Web 2.0. I split them into teams of 2-3 students and gave them each a word to investigate. You can see our...