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This is really a very exciting experience for students. Wikiville is still in its infancy. The stated purpose is: 21st Century students building a world-story of life in their home towns. I think this is an exciting opportunity for students. If you are a wiki teacher, join wikiville. I did the setup tonight and plan to have some of my students work on it tomorrow during time they may have near the end of the class. (I always have extra wiki projects going for those who finish work and labs early.) Tags: wiki , education , teaching , student collaboration , wikiville , blog , blogs , Vicki A Davis, coolcatteacher

Right in the middle of a video on TCP/IP - Whack! Vinton Cerf (co-inventor of TCP/IP) said "When you're up to your neck in alligators, you forget that your job is to clear the swamp." So Vinton Cerf collects alligator heads! Alligators are "near and dear to my heart" in a way as my brother in law is the largest alligator farmer in this part of the country. Even when they are small, they will still "bite the tar out of you" as my grandmother says. This is especially poingnant for many teachers today. How can a teacher see the big picture and teach when they are concerned for their job? When standards are evolving, or the case of technology -- you are still teaching floppy disks when you need to be teaching wikis, blogs, and XML. Decentralization. Empowerment. Trust. These are the hallmarks of good businesses. As I was reading Guy Kawasaki's blog today about " How to prevent a Bozo explosion " I felt some of his comments apply to e...

During the cold, bleak, dark month of February it is easy to get in the dumps. We must remember our noble calling of teaching! In an old book from England entitled The Wonderful Window , we see an incredible principle: A London clerk worked in a drab office in the rundown part of the city in an office overlooking the slums. As he observed the surroundings, he determined he would not let his outlook on life be dictated by the dreariness and hopelessness that surrounded him. This clerk bought a beautiful, colorful Oriental window that had been painted with an inspiring scene. This was a large white banner with a strong knight protecting his city from a dangerous, fierce dragon. There were castles, towers, green parks, and beautiful homes on wide streets. The clerk installed this window on a high wall in his office. When he became disheartened , he no longer looked at the dismal scene below but focused above on the knight on the banner. He felt he was working for that knight on th...

I love teaching! It is one of the great joys and delights of my life. Here is what has happened this week in our world of Wikis and blogging: Wikis My ninth graders used wikis to r eview for their test on Microsoft Excel . Ninth graders continue to update their study hall . (Homework for the week.) Some of my kids continue to enjoy working on their riddles project. I love the optical illusions and the jokes are hilarious. These three boys have scoured the Internet and found some great riddles and mind benders. You may want to use some with your students. Blogs This week I spent setting up my students on blogs at classroom blogmeister . Here are some things of note: I posted a Class Blogmeister how to article here at cool cat teacher if you want to get started. I mentioned to my students that basic HTML tags work and some of them have been using the IMG tag to add photographs to their posts. My ninth grade is doing a joint project between my class and the English department. ...

Now that my classes have mastered wikis , we are entering the blogosphere . After thoroughly researching several opportunities, I ended up at David Warlick's Class Blogmeister site. Sometimes I can be dense, so I wrote down the steps as I did them. (Don't worry, we are continuing to use wikis.) How to set up your class blogs on Class Blogmeister - The Cool Cat Way 1) Register for a school code . 2) Register for a teacher account . 3) Configure your blog . Click on the Control Panel button . (See picture.) a. Name your blog , give a brief description (it appears at the top of the page) b. Type in the About You (it will appear at the bottom right hand corner of the page.) c. Syndicate articles RSS (this is so people who use bloglines and even you can have these "delivered" to their RSS reading service. Turn it on, just trust me! Students will want to subscribe via bloglines so they can keep up with assignments and happenings. Other educators ma...

I haven't seen M*A*S*H* in eons - this episode was written for me! The members of MASH are celebrating " the Christmas they were supposed to be home by ." They were so very depressed. In the midst of it, Father Mulcahey has messed up and slugged a soldier. He is depressed at his screw up. Hawkeye tells him its OK, that everyone messes up. Father Mulcahey says, "I'm not just supposed to say all that stuff, I'm supposed to do it ." Hawkeye replies " Father, get off your back! " Later on the Father is talking to himself and says " I hang around on the edge of effectiveness... " and wondered if he even made a difference. He gets his answer when going to the mess tent. You see, the Father wanted to cheer up Major Winchester Burns and asked Radar to write home to Burn Winchester's mom and get something that would remind him of home. Burns Winchester opens a box under the tree and it is his Toboggan hat -- the one he wore as a ch...

I know some teachers so in pursuit of excellence in knowledge that they lose excellence in teaching! What does excellence in teaching mean to me? My students are able to solve problems not just memorize answers. My teaching evolves to use new tools in meaningful, effective ways. My students use their mind and creativity in class. I can force students to sit in my class, I cannot force them to engage themselves and harness their creativity and excitement. When this happens, I reflect on how to do it again for to me it means I have done something excellent! I understand my subject is part of a total knowledge base not a universe unto itself. In this vein, I cooperate with teachers in other departments on meaningful projects. I am in synch with my student's lives, emotions, and state of mind. I value education and commit to daily reading, learning, and contemplation. I will attend every class, seminar, and event that is relevant with a good attitude and ready to learn. I...

I've used this weekend to welcome my children to the blogosphere. I have been concerned that there are few blogs for kids by kids where I can be certain that the material will be clean, family oriented, and kid friendly. So, my children and I have created one of our own at coolcatkid.blogspot.com . I hope other families will begin to do this! I have several reasons: It is the future of my children. I was programming at age eight -- why can't they blog? It will give them opportunity to write. I have them Save as Draft and I proof and coach them to help them. I want to understand kid blogging issues . I want to experience first hand their l earning, frustrations, and joys with the experience . I want to apply blogging to my classes but am grappling with how. I will probably use Dave Warlicks Classblogmeister tool. I have a couple of constraints: My children are not allowed to use their names. All comments are moderated and go to my e-mail box. No information resides in thei...

Guy Kawasaki is an A-list blogger I emulate and read because: 1. He is concise. He uses the number of words appropriate for the topic. Abraham Lincoln once said: "I would have written a shorter letter but I didn't have time." Being concise takes time and rewriting. I'm working on this one. 2. He is relevant. His audiences are businesspeople, bloggers, and visionaries. He bases his posts on what they need. I love his 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint and have added it to my class instruction. I secretly wish every administrator should read his blog entry on The Art of Recruiting . In that article, Guy says: Classically, organizations look for the “right” educational and professional backgrounds. I would add a third quality: Is the candidate infected with a love of your product? Because all the education and work experience in the world doesn't matter if the candidate doesn't “get it” and love it. You can't teach kids if you hate them! 3. He makes me a ...

I'm taking a break from my fountain of youth ponderings of how to interject energy and youth into your life through teaching for a couple of updates on what we've done this week in the wiki and podcast area. Computer Science We created a computer crimes wiki late last week to analyze the ethics of hacking after we completed our chapter test. I am working with students on synthesizing and summarizing information. I am concerned that some of them tend to copy information from the Internet and call that original. I do not care to know if they have learned to copy and paste! Here was the assignment: Step 1 First of all we are going to find some examples of hacking of all kinds that has been in the news recently. What you are to do: Each person in the class will list one example not posted. You will summarize in 2-3 sentences the detail of the incident and include at least 3 hyperlinks. Step 2 Secondly, we are going to create our opinion on the following question:...

Be content. Doug Johnson at the Blue Skunk Blog said this on Monday: Play the hand you’re dealt. It doesn’t pay to waste a lot of energy bemoaning one’s fate, dwelling on what one doesn’t have. It makes more sense to spend one’s time figuring out how to leverage the assets available. Yeah, we could always use more computers, more bandwidth, a better book budget, and more personnel, (along with more time, more intelligence). And we should work for these things. But until Santa comes, a heck of a lot of fun can be had and good can be done in meeting challenges with the resources on hand. If you wait for the perfect conditions, you’ll spend your life waiting. His whole entry on Monday has to do with this contentment. One of the greatest joys is doing work worth doing! Things will never be perfect. Yes, we should always push and strive for more. There is nothing worse than a whiner that can't do anything today because of wishing for tomorrow. I'm excited that we just recei...

OK, as we've written how to find the fountain of youth as you teach others, let's recap. Vial #1 was Add Variety and Vial #2 was to be observant . Vial #3 is very important -- Be Human Admit your mistakes Richard J. Needham, a Canadian humorist, said: "Strong people make as many and as ghastly mistakes as weak people. The difference is that strong people admit them, laugh at them, learn from them. That is how they become strong." It is OK for kids to know that you indeed are human. I believe that when I am willing to admit my mistakes that I create an attitude of openness and honesty. The students are more likely to admit that they need my help. (Notice, I do not apologize and make excuses ALL the time -- not usually on a daily basis in every class.) Admit it when they taught you something I love it when students discover something new! The other day a student taught me how to do an anchor in wikispaces. I honestly didn't know how. I immediately w...

Greg Asimakoupoulos tells this story: In 1992, a Lost Angeles County parking control officer came upon a brown El Dorado Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day. The officer wrote out a ticket. Ignoring the man seated at the driver's wheel, the officer reached inside the open car window and placed the $30 citation on the dashboard. The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued - and with good reason. The driver of the car had been shot in the head ten to twelve hourse before but was sitting up, stiff as a board, slumped slightly forward with blood on his face. He was dead. The officer, preoccupied with ticket-writing, was unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He got back in his car and drove away. Sometimes we are so intent on the "ticket writing" of our daily routines that we never look into the eyes of our students and coworkers! We miss out! Make eye contact. As students enter the room, I try to look each child in the eye...

The Fountain of Youth! I feel younger than I've ever felt. There's no reason to. I have three kids, three cats, one husband, and almost 100 students. I should be tired, bone tired! I do get weary but I feel young. Douglas MacArthur said it well: "People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, self-doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair; these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust." Are you interested in your students? Are you looking for the precious child who needs you? Is there something about your subject that gets you excited? I'm going to spend the next several days talking about how to find the fountain of youth in your teaching! Fountain of Youth Vial #1: Add variety Vary your pace of teaching, tools, and methods. Boredom is the enemy of education! Add things from current events and the Net! Get excited! Learn from the groans of y...

If you want to be "found" these days you need to be "tagged." Growing up on a farm, we used to tag the cows with a little tag on their ear. It told us where the cow was from and ultimately that the cow belonged to us. You see, cows can be pretty dumb and they like to get out and mix in with other cows. Then you can't tell them apart! To put it simply, the tags let us find the cows we were interested in -- ours! Likewise, when you tag your post, people can easily find your blog information and you become a part of the "global web page" on your topic of interest. For example, if you wanted to see Technorati's "global web page" on wiki education . (That's just one of my favorite tags.) So, you find the tags that are pertinent to your topic and you add them to your post. The code is somewhat confusing, so here is how I simply add it to my blogger account. (I think there are other such plugins for wordpress and the other programs out ...

Ninth Grade Wikis - Week 2 Let me tell you what I'm excited about right now! I'm very excited about my ninth graders and how they've taken to wikispaces. They have a test on Microsoft Access XP tomorrow and have not only outlined the lessons (a class assignment) but have posted their study notes and created a homework page . The latter two were done through their initiative. A great new tip for those who are worried about students creating all of these wikis that you don't know about. These instructions are for the wikispaces service I use. 1 - Go to Manage Space 2- Click on the username of your student. I'm going to let you look at one of my students . You can see that he is a member of the westwood wikispace and a new one called riddles . 3 - To see the space he's joined called riddles -- I just click on the hyperlink for riddles . This is a site that he's created for the logic puzzles he loves to collect. I'm going to have to ask him how he...