Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

I had such a great time in Illinois. And when I lost my cell phone, my twitter friends found it! Have talked to some people about joining some collaborations and accomplished quite a bit. Two challenges in each session for the educators to get the most out of the sessions and conference: 1) Have a Big Three I take one page in my conference notebook (usually the last one) and write at the top "My Big Three" -- then at EACH session I attend, I write the three things I will do within the next 7 days. This gives me one page of action items to do. Although my notes are great, I rarely go back and read them. When I get back, I tear out the page and put the items on my planner or tack it up on my bulletin board. I can clearly look and prioritize then when I see the trends that emerge. 2) Intentional R&D List I believe that teachers must reinvent themselves and continually keep themselves abreast of "what's new." We must move past point and click teaching and h...

Just came across happy happy apple's post on the new Google Android platform for cell phones. This new operating system for cellular telephones seems fascinating. Right now I'm pondering this for two reasons: I'm stuck in Chicago airport -- I arrived at 1:15 pm -- my plane is now delayed and not due to depart until around 4:30 pm CST (this blog post is on EST) My cell phone is MIA (missing in action). Stolen, lost -- who knows. I figured it out last night and my husband called the carrier this morning. As a former General manager in the cell phone business, I've NEVER lost my cell phone. (That doesn't count the time I flushed a pager down the toilet... it was my first job and I kept getting underwater pager noises and toilet flush messages left on my voice mail for months. That is the last time I joked, "I hate this pager, I wish I could flush it down the toilet!" -- because I did it!) So, I cannot live without a cell phone and since I let my contrac...

This week I'm in Illinois at their amazing technology educators conference. I had a delightful dinner with Lucy Gray , Dean Shavit and others. If all of the technical things work out, I will be ustreaming today. Where to Go View the video and audio at my ustream channel . Join the live backchannel chat w/ the participants here in the chatzy room . The password is: coolcat The Schedule I am on central standard time in the USA. Thursday, February 28, 2008 10:00 am - 12:30 pm CST- Wiki Workshop - Ask to join the wiki if you want to collaborate with us, just let me know who you are and where you are. See all of the resources on my wiki. 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm CST - Differentiating Instruction and Assessment with Technology 3:45 pm - 4:30 pm CST - The Flat Classroom, How it Works, What You Accomplish Friday, February 29, 2008 9:45 am - 10:30 am CST - The Flat Classroom, How it Works, What You Accomplish 10:45 am - 11:30 am CST - Cool Cat Teacher's Wonderful World of Web 2 Teaching...

These two things are really kissing cousins. Backchannel The backchannel has really become my favorite tool of choice when I'm presenting. I've purchased an inexpensive ad-free chat room at Chatzy that is password protected and use it for my backchannels when I present. I like to find two people to help: one to serve as Google Jockey (a/k/a Link dropper) and another to serve as a moderator -- posing questions to me when I take a breath and ask. Gomeric Hill talked about the backchannel on a blog post. "The WebEx interface they were using to present Vicki’s Flat Classroom project has a chat that was used throughout her presentation as a backchannel discussion. As Vicki talked, the conversation in the chat replied to her, responded to her, posted questions for her and assisted with answering questions without Vicki’s help. Sometimes the chat updated slowly and at other times, the information was being added so quickly it was hard to keep up with the glut of information b...

OK, everyone. I think I sense in twitter a little Monday dread coming on, so perhaps we need another Funday Monday. This one is from Wavelength -- a great professional development drama troupe for teachers -- I saw them in Atlanta a few years a go . They are hilarious. For the Veteran Teacher Teacher Anger Jeopardy I love this one! And remember -- always greet your students and call them by name when they enter -- I believe this is important. I make eye contact with every student as they enter -- I like to stand at the door and do this. This video is a humorous reminder. We don't need any mutant teachers out there. OK, and if none of these work, try this... (the second clip is from my favorite old show Call for Help -- I actually saw this one happen on TV. It is sooo funny.) Sorry for the blatant move away from education, but hey, the tension is killing me and we need a laugh sometimes. I'll be heading up to Illinois this Wednesday -- hope to see some of you there. tag: f...

While playing with Newspond , I came across information on the wireless protocol that is going to turn your student's cell phone into more of a computing workhorse than ever. Here comes GiFi Interestingly, this technology named GiFi , invented by our friends down in Australia , and is supposed to replace WiFi. This technology uses a different spectrum than WiFi and is supposed to be allow a whopping 5Giga Bits per Second for up to 10 Meters . ( ZdNet ) Can you say, streaming HD? They believe this will make it possible for us to live streaming HD wirelessly as well as a virtual connection to a docking station that would let your laptop display on multiple displays AND access non-internal hard drive storage. The article says it won't be here until 2009 but the target price for this chip is $10 -- yes, $10 which it means it can be in pretty much anything. What it means for education I've been continually saying that one day, we're going to be REQUIRING kids to bring thei...

I came across this twitter from @kolson29 -- a great video from an elementary teacher. This great video from a fifth grade teacher, Frieda Foxworth (Teacher Tube profile) ffoxworth )in South Carolina is a wonderful reminder of the power of using blogs in the classroom: This is a great video! Kudos, kudos! Frieda totally rocks! Wow! tag: Frieda Foxworth , blogging , education , learning , teaching , innovation

I came across a cool post about 13 online alternatives to PowerPoint and decided to play with PreZENt it! I made a slideshow and then shared what I learned. I WISH I could embed the show into this blog post, but it seems that feature isn't enabled. Just remember, if you're ONLY teaching powerpoint, you're missing it. PowerPoint is great, but it is likely that students will have to change software programs as often as they change their hairstyles over their lifetimes. Fluency is technology is very important as students will have to be able to move from not only job to job but platform to platform. Get out there and expose your students to more!

I've been reading a lot lately and have come across several books I'd like to share with you. (I'm starting to get some books from publishers, and am overjoyed to get them... I like to share the best!) Project Based Learning & Technology Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age - This book by Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss is a gem. Julie Lindsay and I were talking today about what a great overview this book is. I think this book is a must buy for those who are looking to implement flat classroom-type projects. Excellent book! My recommended audience: I think that curriculum directors and teachers will enjoy this book because it is very practical and will help with implementation of projects using technology that also support research-based best practices. It is also a must read for professional developers who focus on technology. What is is in this book: The book covers many examples of projects and covers prepl...

I've given several presentations lately and, although I'm posting these on my personal wiki , I thought some of you would like to see the slides. Flat Classroom Mashup/ 7 Steps to a Flat Classroom | View | Upload your own This was given last night at the Discovery Educators presentation. Julie and I talking about Flat Classroom 2007 as we mashup Pink and Friedman If you want to hear Julie Lindsay and I present the first part of this, I have an elluminate recording from today when she and I presented to some teachers in North Carolina. You'll hear Julie and I talk about this year's Flat Classroom project structure, organization, and methods. You can see all of my slideshows on slideshare - http://www.slideshare.net/coolcatteacher/slideshows. Putting a little Zen in It I've been reworking all of my presentations (and changing how I teach presentations), based upon Garr Reynolds ' amazing book Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery...

I've been on "vacation" for the last four days but with a sick daughter, messy house, and a beebee gun to the back windowshield of my vehicle -- I've been feeling more like a human "doing" than a human "being." I came across KWHobbes' great article about " Functioning in a state of overload ." He's a father of 7 so I feel that he can identify with my all too constant state of rush rush. I believe a lot of teachers will identify with his thoughts: "Safe to say I was overwhelmed and beginning to wonder if all the hype was worth the added stress. And, if I was having trouble, can you image what other educators who weren’t using technology would feel like if this were thrust upon them, even a bit at a time. With the number different things that are coming at educators from all sides, an overload of information is not what they need. So how does one manage in this time of information overload and do more than just skimming and s...

Jeremiah over at Wet Strategist has a great post he's doing explaining to businesses about Social Media. Part 1 is what to do with negative comments and part 2 is about authenticity and transparency. These are two things I discuss at length with my students and I thought I'd share them with you! What do you do with negative comments? Hurricaine Maine saw this recently in her class. A student who deleted the comment of someone who disagreed with them. Here are my thoughts: #1 - You have a right to keep profanity off of your own blog I will not allow profanity on my blog. It doesn't come through a lot, but it has before . If I get profanity, I will rephrase the comment, reiterate my policy, and also reiterate my viewpoint that every perspective is important but that we should treat one another with decency and respect. ( See my posting on xbox live to see how I handled this in November.) I have found that people want to be heard, but sometimes see the bad behavior...

Just taking a break from my binge cleaning spree of the whole house to share with a you a few tools I want to get to know better: VoiceThread - This is a tool that is on my hotlist to implement in our elementary school. I also want to use it more. (The one day I was testing it, they were plagued with server problems.) Google Notebook - I'm going to experiment with student notetaking and sharing in here -- we've done it in chatzy and Google Docs (I have several students who routinely group notetake in Google Docs, it is a great thing.) StumbleUpon - I've been refamiliarizing myself with this old favorite lately. They've done a few things to make it more usable. I find it a great way to find new "stuff." Google Reader - I'm going to work with pulling my bloglist out of google reader instead of bloglines and share the Google Shared Clips. This reader is so very useful that I've fallen in love with RSS again. (I still use netvibes and iGoogle, how...

I'm just now buying the Twitter Book Group's book of the month, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder . I haven't read this book, although the theme resonates with me. I am a big believer in unstructured outdoor play! (But even the words "unstructured outdoor play" sound a bit limited to me.) It is so important for kids to just go outside with nothing planned, nothing on the agenda. Sometimes they need to get out the hose and make a mudpuddle. Sometimes they need to play rockets or whatever their hearts desire. If you want to join in, it is a twitter bookclub open to everyone. There is a wiki and guidelines for how it works (or how we think it will work.) Add your name to the list of participants and let's experiment. Wouldn't it be cool to actually take our kids out to freeplay and twitter what we observe to the bookgroup . OK, now, I've got to go clean the house! I've just downloaded my first book fr...

I know this is a promotion for the new Indiana Jones Movie , but I love the quote at the end: Indiana Jones' son "You're a teacher." Indiana: "Part time." (hat tip to basler on twitter ) The romanticized part of me wants to think that there are a lot of us out here who teach and then do really exciting things on the side. And I could talk about that. But really, I'm just excited about a really cool movie! Actually, the Indiana Jones movies and Star Wars movies got me through college. When I would study for 18 hours a day, I would put these on my trusty VCR and play them in the background so I wouldn't have a pity party about having to study so much at Georgia Tech. These movies are an anchor for me. They are part of who I am. Maybe this is why I love to use movie clips to teach. Some of my favorite clips are: Samwise Gamgee's speech from Lord of the Rings - Yoda and Luke Training "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." I te...

a simulpost with TechLearning The cupcake is a delicious thing! We all love cupcakes and our school parties are full of them! Cupcakes are everywhere. But what happens when someone gives a person they dislike a cupcake that looks like this? Or what happens when you eat too many cupcakes and end up like this? So, really, what we're saying is that we should BAN CUPCAKES! They make us fat, they hurt people's feelings! They are terrible, awful things -- aren't they? And yet. We don't! Why not? Well, we see cupcakes for what they are... an object in the use of humankind. And as with all objects, they can be used for good or for bad. There are lots of other objects like these running around in schools... scissors (they can kill people), pens or pencils (also could kill someone), and the most lethal thing ever invented: human beings! Human beings are all over our schools, and yet, as we are reminded this week, they kill more other humans than anything else! But yet, we d...

My friend Lucy Gray sent me information on this great program! It is Doodle 4 Google and your school has 6 submissions that they may submit to Google. (So it means you need to have a school competition.) It is open to grades K-12 and they have made lesson plans to help you ( Grades K - 3 , Grades 4 - 6 , Grades 7 - 9 , Grades 10 - 12 ). First, you must register and get your 6 ID numbers from Google. (Only 6 per school!) Then, download the lesson plans and the flyer (to post on your door.) The doodles will be judged in 10 regions to get 400 state winners and eventually will narrow down to one national winner which will go live on the Google homepage for 24 hours. Here is the information Lucy sent me: It's called Doodle 4 Google, and it offers students all over the country the chance to design the Google logo, and perhaps have their artwork viewed by people all over the world. The Doodle 4 Google theme is "What if...?" Here are some examples of what this could mean...