Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Statcounter (see my post " Ten Habits of Bloggers that Win " on how to set it up) has a great new feature called "Recent User Google Map." I've started going onto my class blogs and printing out these maps so that students can see all of the locations that are visiting their blogs. I have also added a button called " View My stats " on the blogs. Students can go see the maps. We are a little behind on our scribe posts. My students just like to use the wik i for everything because they can work together. We'll see if I can get it going better in my classes or if I need to just stick with the wiki and classblogmeister for my student questions of the week. To the left is my door. It shows the Stats from my blog and my two student blogs as well as the stats for our wiki. (We're getting over 40,000 hits a month.) I also printed out the recent commetns from Canada and highlighted the portions that I wanted my computer science students to view...

I couldn't help but pass this one along, I find it so amusing. Read how researchers used 3-D imaging to determine that the gauzy shawl that she wore was actually the one worn by women in the Rennaissance who were with child. It is a fascinating article. But, as the researchers say: No scientific research will ever figure out exactly what Leonardo was trying to convey, or why exactly she was smiling. New discoveries "don't take away the mystery," Menu said. "On the contrary, they merely add another layer to the meaning, which only makes things more interesting." I feel like this is akin to the research about best practices in the classroom. I envision a picture of a teacher standing in the foreground of a classroom of students excitedly working on computers. Why is the teacher smiling? Perhaps it is because the teacher knows that truly he or she is the most critical element in the classroom that determines whether that classroom will succeed or fail . ...

Those who shake their finger at the anecdotal evidence of classroom transformation as shown in my classroom and those of others, now have some hard research to look at. Sometimes, we have to look at other fields that have long relied upon print media to transmit their message: t he news media. In the Online Journalism Review , there is an amazing new articl e which aggregates many sources of research. The author is Larry Pryor, an Associate Professor at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. He's currently researching the haptics and epistemology of digital news media. I'd like to share some amazing quotes (please read the article ) and some thoughts from a teacher's viewpoint. Article: It feels relevant: biological tactility in news media The subtitle: Researchers see a body-brain link that might explain how multimedia affects viewer participants in deeper ways than print or television. What does it mean for journalism? OK, I ask, "what does this mean for edu...

Wiki Work The wiki continues to manage my classroom as the homepage is chock full of RSS feeds and hyperlinks to current assignments and projects. Computer Science has completed Chapter 2 of their wiki book on the History of Computing . This was an individual project with each student assigned to present a PowerPoint to the class on their topic. They were required to have at least one embedded video which they located primarly on Google Video. I found that the founding of Apple had a lot of interesting information (although not enough hyperlinks.) I liked the formatting on the Colossus and the Integrated Circuit . I think we'll use screen capture software to let them video and narrate their presentations and post those in the future. The wiki didn't capture the depth of their knowledge on this PowerPoint project. Their Chapter 1 on Computer Security continues to create a buzz and questions from the blogosphere for me . They did a good job! Feedback from Canada Here is one...

Two Saturdays a go, I saw what special truly means. For three years my National Honor Society students and the students in Y-Club have served as officials for our local Bocce Ball Special Olympics tournament. Bocce is a great sport for the Special Olympics because people of many different physical abilities can play including those in a wheel chair. Usually, the Special Olympics in our area doesn't like to use teenagers because they have had problems. However, our students have taken to this event unlike anything I've ever seen. Each Bocce courts requires four students, leadership, patience, and a lot of sweating in the hot sun. This is truly one of the best projects we've ever done. Although the Special Olympics people have told me that they often have trouble getting high school students to do a good job, we've found it to be the opposite for several reasons: 1) We trained the students well. (The first year, one Saturday for 4 hours!) 2) We ordered special ...

Needless to say, you can tell from the photo that I teach a bunch of animals! Well, not literally, but it is homecoming week and combined with personal stress, I have to keep focused and remember to "keep the main thing the main thing." I've had some inquiries about what we've been doing lately. Although I'm in the midst of assessing some of these projects, I'd like to share with you the main projects we've completed. Crispy News as a model for understanding the Grassroots Media Movement As part of my weekly question two weeks a go, I created a news aggregation site for our class on Crispy News. - http://westwood.crispynews.com/ It is open and the students still don't quite have a handle of it. I want them to understand the importance that voting will have on the future of media. This is still emerging, but I believe that future models of news will include a definite "vote" factor as the grassroots media emerges. We are still working on...

I know that many of you come here for education and Web 2.0. However, rather than sit around and think about what YOU want to hear, I have always made it a point to share with those who read what is on my mind and heart. Whatever is going on in my life is mirrored in my blog. I do have a lot of exciting wiki, digital storytelling things and others to share with you (and I will soon), but right now my thoughts turn to my father in law. As I've blogged previously, he is in the final stages of Parkinsons Disease and although Doctors have extended his life by at least 5 years through medication, he can barely swallow now. My husband and I have been numb for the last several weeks as we've adjusted life. It is not about us or how we feel right now, that can come later. It is about being there for him, loving him, praying for him, and making him comfortable. That is it! The selfish people that say, "I just can't deal with it." That drives me crazy! Get over it! ...

I've been reading an article this afternoon " New AIM Worm may Prove Tough to Exterminate " and it brings me back to a point I've been writing on heavily for several days. How do people get the AIM worm? The worm, known as W32.pipeline, propagates when AIM users click on a Web link that appears to have been sent to them by someone on their buddy list. They receive a message along the lines of, "Hey, would it be OK if I upload this picture of you to my blog?" If the recipient clicks on the link, an executable file that looks like a JPEG will download into a Windows folder... Their recommendation: The best defense is for AIM users to be wary of clicking on links. If a user receives an unexpected link from a buddy, the user can always reply to ask if that person sent the link, to make sure it is legitimate. Who Instant Messages? Not suprisingly, a Pew Internet study conducted in 2004 found that 42% of Internet users use Instant Messaging, with 37% of those us...

I want to thank Kim for her comment on an older post of mine entitled "The Power of a Newbie." In her comment, she says: I happened upon this post, and wanted to let you know that you have inspired me to write more about each step I learn as I go along. For a while there I was feeling so far behind, that I didn't want to demonstrate my "late-adopter-ness" by posting things that everyone knows already. And then I found this post, which made me realize that there are so many other teachers out there, just like me, that want to jump in feet first, but are just as overwhealmed. Then I realized, we all have to try together. Post what we've learned, share what we try, and build on what we've read elsewhere. There's no place else to go but up. Thanks for providing a starting point! I just want to remind you beginners that I was a beginner too last November. The point of the whole article is: When you are a newbie, you have something that tech-experts do ...

A judge denied bond Monday for a man accused of abducting and assaulting a 14-year-old girl and holding her in an underground bunker for more than a week before she was able to send a text message to her mother. Forbes.com Texting, e-mail, cell phones. All of these things are just communications channels, neither inherently good nor inherently evil, but rather, how they are used determines their worth. Text messaging saved her life! In this case, text messaging saved a girl from living hell and probably murder. I weary of people complaining about kids texting or chatting or IM'ing. Kids are just talking for goodness sakes! That's what kids do. What if Mama didn't know how to text? It is time for adults to listen and join in. Thank goodness the mother knew how to read the text message, because I know many parents that do not. The cost of being unable to text her daughter would have cost this mother her most precious gift, her daughter. It is time for us parents to move o...

Sometimes my mother's heart cannot bear the pain I hear and today is no exception. During the debates that have ensued after the posting of my eleven ways to monitor your child online , I have read the words of a mother (and educator) whose child has been a mourner at Dawson College. She said this banner was hung at the college: Life is not a computer game; there is no 2nd level, there are no extra lives You’ve lost your reality. It so moved me, that I have posted a question of the week entitled Life is Not a Computer Game for my students as follows: This week the Dawson College killings are in the news. I have recently been blogging about it . Kimveer Gill, the killer spent time on a website posting hate filled words and terror that foreshadowed what he would be doing. An eighteen year old girl is dead. In response, a mother in Montreal posted her thoughts including the banner that was at the college (her daughter goes there) that said: "Life is not a computer gam...

"She knew he spent a lot of time on the computer in his bedroom but had no idea he was filling an online journal with hate-filled rants and violent fantasies. "We found there was a little change because he was a little quieter, but he still was normal at home, living with us upstairs, [sleeping] in his bedroom. It's not that he was alone in the basement or anything," she said." says Parvinder Sandhu , mother of Dawson College killer, Kimveer Gill, an active member of vampirefreaks.com . If your child is online, you should be too! This is yet another reason if your children are online, you should be too! If your kids are on myspace, get your own myspace account and be added to their friends list. Is this invasion, NO! Is it raising your kids, YES! We would never dream of going days at a time without speaking to our family! Well, children are speaking all of the time but adults who ignore their Internet presence are ignoring their children! I have revised ...

The power of Newsmap As I perused newsmap today ( thank you SEGATECH! ), I came across the article which discusses the first thought controlled prosthesis and I am struck by how rapidly things can change. The First Thought Controlled Prosthesis This first merge between human thought and a robotic prosthesis suddenly blurs the line between human and the machinery/robotics that until this point have been distinctly separate from us. As we discuss the history of computing, my computer science class has been talking about the next evolution in computing. And then it happened under our nose. So, I posted this question for next week's computer science consideration: An article appeared today about the first thought controlled prosthesis that has been created by the military. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.bionic14sep14,0,5964038.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines As we have begun to discuss biologic computing, I have the following question. How will we...

The future of the wiki There are a few things I'd like to see develop in the wiki world to make this tool more useful: 1- Rating of wiki editors- eBay went to a buyer-seller rating system to make eBay more self policing and safe. Likewise, I'd like to see wikipedia and other major wikis develop a reader-editor rating system. For example, a Level 1 editor would be considered an excellent source of information but a beginning wiki-editor may begin at a level 10. As people read and agreed with information, that person would begin to become a higher level editor. As their information remained intact and unchanged, that would also improve their ratings. I believe this would allow more accurate information to "rise to the top" and unethical wiki-editors to require approval of a higher level editor before their edit "takes". (For example, show the text submitted by a level 10 editor in a shaded box and require the approval of a level 5 or higher, etc.) I know...

"We teach what we know; we reproduce who we are." Robert Schmidgall Who are we? I have to wonder if we have become a people overly enamored with what we can do with technology. How often do we reflect on what we should be doing? How we can be more safe? How can we share in this knowledge soup without getting burned? As my computer science students have worked to learn and share about online safety , I am stunned with actually how many things I did not know! What I learned about pop ups! For example, when pop up boxes appear on your screen, you should never click on the box (even on the red x.) The red "x" in the pop up box is often part of the pop up itself and when you click it spyware or malware can be installed on your computer. If using Windows, you should always right click on the window on the task bar and select "Close." (See the information on the Pop Up wiki. ) The Implications of Not Teaching Computer Ethics Many educators have the followin...

I've been offline because I've been out of town having my youngest son tested at Atlanta Speech School 's learning evaluation clinic. They are the best testing service that I am aware of and they have completely changed the lives of my extended family! (They have found things others did not!) I come from a family of extremely gifted (the tests prove it) but almost all of us have significant learning challenges (most people would call them learning disabilities.) My first cousin is almost a 100% auditory learner. It makes it difficult if she has to extract material from the written word, but she has learned how. If she takes notes during lecture, her learning actually goes down. I, however, learn very little in an auditory fashion. I take prolific notes because I know that within moments I will forget what the person has said unless I write it down. I guess I've sort of accommodated myself in that way. My son, sister, and now youngest son have processing challege...