Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

I'd like to bring you in on a "little" discussion that we've been having behind the scenes about the potential for an edubloggerCon just prior to the NECC conference in Atlanta in June of 2007. We're still in the formatory stages and that is why we need YOU to join the discussion. I personally have had enough of things where I had no input and I always felt left out. Well, if you feel the same way as me, ("I've got something to say and want to be a part of something!") then this is a personal invitation from me to join in the conversation. Go on over to the Edubloggercon page and join the edubloggercon Google Group or even the wiki . NECC is going to be incredible and this will actually be my first one! I am so excited about meeting some amazing people and coming away with inspiration. I hope you'll introduce yourself (and I hope that some of the proposals I've submitted get accepted.) Since I went to Georgia Tech and lived just down...

I've posted this weeks podcast about my thoughts about how this decade will be characterized. We have the 70's, 80's, 90's, and now we have the 00's (pronounced Oh's). I think that there are three types of people that characterize the OO's in education that I outline in the podcast. Also, I talk about the Friedman book and its impact on teachers as well as the new flat classroom project that I've been discussing here on the blog. Length: 5 minutes 54 seconds About the Podcast You can now download the cool Cat Teacher podcast from the iTunes store (in ITunes click on I tunes store, PowerSearch, and then type in cool cat teacher). Unless I do an interview, these will be posted two-three times a month and will run around 5 minutes in length. You may also subscribe over Odeo. http://odeo.com/channel/80086/rss.xml

I believe Stephen Downes has spotted the next big discussion from pundits who want to criticize the emerging social network as outlined in a new Inc. magazine article entitled the Idiocy of Crowds . I believe it is a must read for progressive administrators who advocate these technologies so that you can formulate your response IN ADVANCE. Stephen's critique: "This article is getting some traction, but it would have been nice had the author taken the time to comprehend the theory he is criticizing." The author in this article says: "As for the Internet and our newfound ability to tap into the masses, a more subtle form of havoc arises. Simply put, when you make it easy for everyone to put in his two cents, with little filtering or accountability, the scum tends to rise to the top...For all the excitement generated by social networking sites like Facebook, how many people are actually making valuable contacts on these sites, compared with the amount of time wasted b...

I was chatting with Craig in Greece today and I asked him what flat classroom s mean to him -- he said this: "No walls." Hmmmm . Today is the kickoff of the Flat Classroom Project This is on my mind because today was Day 1 of the Flat Classroom collaborative project between Julie Lindsey' s classroom in Dhaka, Bangladesh and my computer science classroom in Camilla, Georgia. Our classrooms connected after Julie responded to a blog posting that I created: My Student's Weigh in on Friedman's Flat world . She and I began to discuss what flat, collaborative classrooms truly mean. After seeing some synergies and a common passion for global collaboration, we drafted a plan. We took each it to our local administrators and curriculum directors and received approval for what we are calling our flat classroom project. Synopsis of Project: Our students will be paired with each other to create wikis and multimedia resources discussing the educational and indust...

The holidays are full of excitement and sadness. As we get older, we appreciate the moments, but we also think of the past. My husband just turned forty and just preceding that his father died. His mother died when he was 26. As I looked around at my large family of 65+ -- I thought of the many people who weren't there. My grandfather and grandmother. My other grandmother has dementia and can no longer walk much less make her famous dressing. And as I look at Monday, I just feel like staying in bed and pulling the covers over my head and having a good cry. I know that five thousand things will come barreling at my head like barbed projectiles from those who have no idea how difficult some of the things they ask are. Students may not want to be there and I'm going to have to be UP! So, my husband and I had an extended discussion of how we will tackle tomorrow and turn what could be a tough day to a better one. (Besides that my football team, Georgia Tech lost to our arch...

a simulpost with the TechLearning blog . Note: I don't usually post the same thing in both places, however, I've spent three days on this post and want my readers to have a copy! This is my Thanksgiving Present to You! As I sit with my morning coffee stuffed bigger than yesterday's unfortunate aviary creature, I have been spending a day being thankful. Today, that mood carries forward as I am thankful for my "birth" into this new blogosphere and thing we call "Web 2.0." I think it is important that I share with you the websites that I am the most thankful for. I've also asked some of my friends on the blogosphere about their favorite websites as well. (If you'd like to take a "virtual" tour, I've made a trackstar page with annotations so you can click and read. Trackstar is a great tool from 4teachers.) 1 - Wikispaces I teach in a wiki-centric classroom. Wikispaces gives free online accounts. If you want to learn more ab...

Tune in tomorrow night at worldbridges.net for our interview with Patsy Lanclos . Patsy was chairman of the Texas Technology Standards that set up the standards for the State of Texas for technology literacy. She will be the guest on the Women of Web 2.0 EdTechTalk tomorrow night -- The Wow2 podcast is at http://worldbridges.net/ or http://edtechtalk.com/ You should go to EdTechTalk and sign in the chat room and you can either go to http://skypecasts.skype.com and search for our skypecast (Search for Women of Web 2) or listen in at Worldbridges.net (usually we are channel 1). We look in the chat room to take questions for the speaker. We will be discussing -- What does it mean to be technically literate? How should we as educators respond? Tags: edtechtalk , education , teaching , podcast , worldbridges , edtechtalk , Patsy Lanclos , Womenofweb2 , vicki A Davis , coolcatteacher

powered by ODEO This is the great interview that I promised you yesterday. It is an amazing interview with Patrick Crispen from California State University . He discusses some things that I didn't know including information about HDTV, IPTV, RFID Tags in passports. Learn some fascinating things like the protocol that you must have in HDTV or you are wasting your money or why you should steer clear of bluRay. Also how the computers in schools will turn into closed circuit TV's and many fascinating facts. Recorded in November of 2006 at the Georgia Association of Educators Technology Conference. If you're planning on buying a HDTV TV, you'd better listen to this or you will be wasting your money! This was a fascinating interview! My students will be listening to this! Tags: Patrick Crispen , teaching , education , HDTV , bluray , IPTV , Vicki Davis , Vicki A Davis , coolcatteacher

I have recorded a message to my students that they will be listening to tomorrow and blogging about. It is 18 minutes and includes my top 8 take away items from the conference, what I think they will have to do to compete in the future, and how they can help enact change at our school. It is a glimpse into the heart of a person who loves teaching, loves her students, and genuinely knows that students want to learn and teachers want to teach. powered by ODEO Tags: coolcatteacher , teaching , computers , education , Vicki Davis , Vicki A Davis , teacher , blogging , wikis

Anne Davis posted about her participation the wiki workshop yesterday. Her presence was both inspiring and humbling. I was excited to hear how much of her research validates my classroom observations about collaborative, cooperative technologies. I'm thankful that she took away some things to apply. Tags: GAETC , GAETC2006 , Anne Davis , wiki

I have two other amazing podcasts to share with you, but I've been blogging and editing now for three hours and I've got to get some sleep. Just as a preview -- I (Jennifer Wagner and Sharon Peters) interviewed Patrick Crispen and have thirty minutes of absolutely must hear podcast if you are a purchaser or decision maker -- or just if you're shopping for an HDTV for Christmas. If you carry a passport, you'll learn how it may make you a target for terrorists. It is a mind blowing, incredible interview that my students WILL be listening to. Then another mind blower with Tonya Witherspoon. She is a member of the National Writing project and did an amazing interview about the MEASURABLE improvement in writing that they are seeing by involving audio MP3 recorders in the writing curriculum. She also talks about some amazing think tank work going on with Second Life. I also hope to talk to Will Richardson tomorrow but I know EVERYONE will want to talk to him. It has been ...

powered by ODEO What a great session I had with Dr. Tim Tyson! He is a middle school principal at Mabry Middle School . Sharon Peters and I interviewed him after the session. Here are a couple of points from the podcast. He has a blogging experience set up with schools in Japan. To set up his projects, he works with other schools and finds them directly. (Flat classroom! Yet another reason principals should blog -- opportunity for students!) They use carts of computers and has more demand than resources. He discusses the amazing impact on learning. He sees a lot of pride now. He says that the research is showing that the difference between "stand and deliver" teaching and project based learning is that students remember the information for a much longer period of time. They have an Oscars program. He has a one day training for parents, students, and teachers. Didn't just train teachers because when students are trained too, teachers can focus on content "not ju...

powered by ODEO I was perusing the exhibition hall when suddenly a group of students had my rapt attention. These were four polished, intelligent, well spoken students from Miller Grove High School displaying their professional-looking self made videos. Their teacher, Brenda Neely, with a military and business background, glowed as she discussed how they work nights, weekends, mornings, summer, winter, and fall breaks. Her students have a purpose. Her award winning video profiled some amazing women including Atlanta's Monica Kaufman. I only saw a snippet but it was enough to make me cry. Doors are opening to these students with video cameras in their hands and bits and bytes on their brain. And they are busting down the doors of the schoolhouse in order to do their often self assigned "work." Although they have a class and a club -- their motto is "The video club is not a club, it is a business." Listen to their excitement! You'll have to hear it t...

I am learning a lot at GAETC this year. I am sharing with you my conference experience as I see it. I am not researching the breadth of which vendor is the best nor do I wish to start flame wars -- these are my observations and I look forward to hearing your input or suggestions for other ways to do things. I've been going through the conference with my digital recorder, notebook and laptop and boy have I been learning a lot. Rather than do a massive post, I'm going to separate my posts into topics so that you may share them in a topic focused way. I've also created a podcast channel over at Odeo that I will use for these and all future podcasts - the feed is on the left side of my blog and can also be found at this feed: http://odeo.com/channel/80086/rss.xml Technology will become the backbone of Georgia performance standards We heard from Stuart Bennett - Chief Deputy Superintendent of Schools, Georgia Department of Education "Technology will become the backb...

We had a great edTechTalk tonight as we talked about why teachers should blog. (We also had an interesting post show talking about second life.) We laughed at some of the new terms coined recently. (Whether by us or others, we don't really know.) I'd like to share them with you. Blurk - To lurk on a blog and never comments. Stuck in Web 1.9 - Someone who denies the evolution of the Internet to the read/write web. Drive by Commenter - A person who doesn't read your blog but drives by, leaves a long tirading message, and never returns. (I did coin this phrase.) Virtual Tattoo - What students are unknowingly making. Colleges are beginning to search myspace and screen applicants based upon their online profiles. Like Alaska was the first frontier and Space is the final frontier -- Jason named the Internet the virtual frontier. We also discussed some neat things including www.yackpack.com , www.bubbleshare.com (Jen says it is the ONLY place to share photos with kids and...

Today I taught a great workshop with many amazing teachers. They were so impressive and did an incredible job in a relatively short amount of time. I think I had the cream of the crop in my class! They were great! Meeting the faces behind the inspiration! I am so excited, I've gotten to meet the people behind several of my favorite blogs. I met Anne Davis who is an amazing professor at Georgia State who also does work in elementary classes each week. She is so grounded in the reality of teaching and also has a great grasp on research. She is a borne encourager and I see why she is such a great teacher! I met Sharon Peters from Canada a WOW2 friend who also took the class. She and I got very good and lost on the back roads around the airport tonight. Jennifer Wagner saved the day and even helped me as we explored web 2.0 as part of our team collaborative projects . (And she taught this morning and tonight until 9 pm. What a woman! She is so knowledgeable!) I met Stephen...

The Edublog Awards are open until November 30th. Get out there and nominate your favorites by e-mailing up to two nominations (total) per category: "This year there are ten categories: Best audio and/or visual blog Best group blog Best individual blog Most influential post, resource or presentation Best library/librarian blog Best newcomer Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching Best teacher blog Best undergraduate blog Best wiki use Nominations: Again, nominations are made confidentially. Please email in your nominations to the awards address: 2006awards@googlemail.com Only current edubloggers are invited to nominate contenders. If you post publicly, and produce some content related to education, you are recognized as an edublogger for the purposes of this competition and are eligible to nominate. Please include your blog url with your nominations. Each participant is able to make a maximum of two nominations per category. Self-nominat...