Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Newlively - Home OK, I'm not sure if this is for real, but it looks like there is a new lively - we are still very cautious and not sure if this is OK, it may be spam. tags : education Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

What on earth is an Ideation Nation? First let me say, I'm so excited about The Flatclassroom Conference that words cannot express them!  This conference is a three year dream and I'm so grateful for Julie Lindsay , Qatar Academy, and HSBC Bank for making this happen.  I truly believe this is going to be a monumentally transformational experience both for us and for education as a whole. It is about empowering students, empowering educators, and using technology in powerful ways that make sense in ways that promote learning.  Interactivity, engagement, and pushing conferences to truly become participative. We're working to get materials to you so that you'll be ready, but the first thing to do here is to PARTICIPATE!  Meet others, blog your reflections (as I'm doing) - share your photos, ask questions.  You'll get so much more out of the conference by interacting with people BEFORE you get there! Our theme is  Ideation Nation:  Citizenship in ...

Feedbooks: Recently Added Books You can get so many books on your iphone - just get the stanza app and then sign up for a feedbooks account to set everything up. This is great! tags : education , learning , iphone , itouch , app , reading Using Google as a *free* MobileMe alternative (with push contacts & calendar) | Beau Giles A link from twitter from rorowe (http://twitter.com/rorowe) on twitter about how to sync Gmails and calendars w/ the itouch. Plodding through this to see if it is what I want to do. I actually looked at this and am synching through Outlook for just my personal calendar and then accessing google calendars as a web app over wifi. So, I'm just going to set this up for the contacts for now just to get them on my itouch. tags : education , itouch , apps , learning , mobile , google , gmail , mobileme Why an iPod Touch in education? Nice blog post about some great apps for the itouch. Will be writing more on this next week, but this is a great post! tags : ...

Web Tools for Teaching: Comparing Microblogging Tools Maryanne Burgos does a nice job of comparing microblogging tools in this post. tags : education , learning Success….In female terms? | Betty Online The conversation from David Truss' blog continues - very nice post from Betty at Betty Online. tags : education , learning Spaz: An Open-Source Twitter Client for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux Another twitter desktop client. I still LOVE tweetdeck, but would love to know if any of you are using this. tags : education , twitter , learning Communicators Anonymous: Choosing the path of humility In this day of me me - personal branding - this post on humility stands out like a beautiful palm tree on a deserted island. It is a great post to ponder. tags : education , learning , edublog Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Book of Tens: People Who Made Their Mark - Advertising Age - News List of people who made their mark - this list and the people to watch in 2009 make interesting reading for ALL leaders and much of their work is influenced by their work in WEb 2.0 and social media. tags : education , learning , edu_news Interviews: Six important forces that will shape 2009 - Trends in the Living Networks This is a great read -- I particularly think that Constant Partial Attention (CPA) is something that we should be aware of in our classrooms. Excellent article. Also I find it interesting how he shares that some kids who have gotten constant positive reinforcement in schools are going to have a tough time w/ competition. Competition is part of life. tags : education , trends , learning , technology , edu_news Color me crazy - 10 best online color tools - Download Squad If you're decorating or working with art projects - this is a great list. tags : education , learning , graphicdesign , art_tea...

Just finished reading an amazing book by Philip Yancey, What's So Amazing About Grace? and as I ponder the year, I'm just so thankful for grace.   Temple of Forgiveness by David Best Grace is not getting what you deserve. It is receiving forgiveness when you should be condemned.  It is about giving forgiveness when people don't deserve it.  And it is something we all need. As I ponder the year, I could contemplate on that time I posted a blog post about a vendor that had done something terrible to me.  (I regretted it and unposted it but I still did it.)  Or the times I was only seeing the end of my own nose and not noticing when someone else was having a tough time.  Or the kid that was upset and I didn't catch it until later?  Or how about the (multiple) times I was crabby and fussed at my children a little too much? All of these things upset me. And then, I read stories like this one of a great man named Ambrose .  I've paraphrased...

I'd like the world to set a goal for 2009 - there are so many that we could set.  But to me, ending the genocide in Darfur should top the list: See what students say: Kotter from Flat Classroom w/ contribution from students from MICDS in St. Louis -- the Interview where they discussed the UN involvement is incredible. Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project See information from MICDS on Web 2.0 and the Sudan Project about how they are using Web 2.0 to educate people about the genocide in Darfur through Web 2.0 Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project Kaycie from Flat Classroom Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project Speak out!

Rhondda’s Reflections - wandering around the Web A nice blog for teachers who work with literature and reading - Rhondda does a nice job of compiling information and links. Well organized blog. tags : education , learning , edublog Yahoo! Glue - all you need, all in one place. Glue all of the topics you need in one place. Looks like an interesting take on feedly or a notebook type service. Cool tags : education , learning , edu_newapp Web 2 Tools for the Read /Write/ Web: Interesting Sites Mary Ann from Web 2 Tools for the Read / Write / Web shares a new tool I haven't seen, "Yahoo Glue" -- it lets you organize things together on one page - nothing to download. Looks fascinating. She shares a sample here as well. tags : education , learning , edu_newapp Finding My Voice Within the Edublogosphere | Teacher Librarian 2.0 Very nice summary of what TeacherLibrarian is doing to "find her voice." This includes some great tips on blogging as well. Well done! tag...

Thank you to everyone who voted in this year's edublog awards.  I was driving to Atlanta and back yesterday and missed the awards podcast yesterday.  This means so much to me -- this blog has been nominated three times and this is the first win.  Thank you so much!  It really means a lot to me, but again, as I said earlier, the real winners are the nominees . There were many amazing nominees: Find some great teachers to read here!  I don't think we could ever have enough teacher blogs! Teaching in the 408 Mrs Cassidy’s Classroom Blog Science Of The Invisible The Cool Cat Teacher Practical Theory dy/dan Web.Cad.6abc Kevin’s Meandering Mind Creating Lifelong Learners Teaching College Math Bald Worm’s Blog Betty’s Blog Songhai Concept Bellringers Science Teacher Sliced Bread The Journey Reflections on Teaching Cliff’s Notes Endless Forms Most Beautiful OllieBray.com Nashworld Box of Tricks Mysterious Teaching The Why of it all Always Lea...

Nestled at the bottom of a student reflection I was grading Thursday night was this gift from Sydnee .  She was asked to reflect on what virtual world she thought we should use next.  She said: "-I do not really care where our next virtual world is.I think that if we have to explore our next world like we did Lively it will be just as easy if not easier. I know that Mrs. Vicki will make the right decision for our class when we find a virtual world." These students mean so much to me.  And these words from Sydnee are greater than anything anyone could give me. Thank you Sydnee for the Christmas gift.

Unintentional Bias | David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts Great post from David Truss on unintentional gender bias in the edtech community. He got me gong on the comments! I appreciate what David writes -- always very insightful. tags : education , bias Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

One of the things I wish the kids DIDN'T think about blogging. The students have analyzed their stats for their blog and discovered one thing : "The way that you can be an affective blogger is to say bad things," said Brady on his reflection . Why does he and others think this? Well, of all the things they did :  suggest how Google Lively could make money ,  Share the 10 things they like about Livel y, their letter to Google and many other posts, the ONE thing that garnered the most attention was... the protest held in Lively . They got more links, more "press" and more response on that than anything. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate those that wrote about their issue and helped call attention to the issue. Now, what does that teach them about the real world?  That educators care about the fact that students think is a great teaching tool?  That they really like Lively and find it easy to use? No, they "reward" them for protesting ...

Stop Twitter Spam » Say Goodbye To Your Spammy Followers Twitter is removing "spammy" followers and if you're on twitter you may see a big drop in your followers. Don't be alarmed, it wasn't anything you've said. Gotta think some people may be legit though. tags : education , twitter Steve Hargadon: Stressed Over NECC Rejections? Don't Be. Share your work at NECC unplugged if your proposal was rejected. Edubloggercon is on Saturday also -- so, share away! The only person who can keep you from sharing is your own self! tags : education , necc Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Over the next days of break, we've scheduled student reflections on the Digiteen Dream Team and the protest of Google lively shutting down to post on the Dream Team Blog. As part of their reflection, I asked the students to tell me if the protest was worth it since Lively is still shutting down and Google hasn't responded to their requests. Today's reflective post from Krysten , says it so well: "I feel that our efforts were worth all the trouble we went through. We had people say mean things about us but we kept going. I learned to not let other people's opinions keep me from doing what is right. Some people think that we should not teach others about digital citizenship because they think it can be taught in twenty minutes and that it wont help. But the fact is that more and more people are using the internet and if they dont know how to use it properly, it could be dangerous." My goodness, such wisdom for life and for so many things.   Hope you'l...

It is tough with NECC 2009 this year -- so many people applied, I know it had to be tough to decide who would present. (The twittersphere has been atweet over this.) I just want to tell the people who were "rejected" what to think about rejection. Rejection has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. The lonely girl in the back of the room (put there b/c she wouldn't dare talk to anyone) -- made fun of, hurt, and wounded most of the time. And yet, through this, rejection has taught me something. My self worth comes from me and service to the audience of One. I am a person made in God's image with a purpose and a plan and rejection hurts. WE all want to be "accepted" -- we want to be included. We want to be valued and considered important. To me, since I've become a teacher, I find this desire to be valued rear its ugly head way too often -- because, I think that as a teacher, we're often islands working with students who ...

ElfYourself by OfficeMax - Powered by JibJab Elf yourself is a very viral jib-jab style Christmas animation that lets you put 5 faces into the program and turn them into dancing elves. It is hilarious and would be great to create for that office christmas party -- it lets you download it and you could burn to dvd. (also fun addition to that family dvd you made in photostory or picasa) What fun! (And a BIG win for Office Max) tags : education , learning , teaching Periodic Table - Cool Resources Great resources for teaching the periodic table. tags : education , science , science_teacher Teaching Strategies for the Everyday Teacher: CoolCatTeacher and the Digiteen Dream Team My students spent yesterday talking to the Tenacious Teacher - this is the podcast. tags : education , lively , digiteendreamteam 9. Tweet - Top 10 Buzzwords - TIME Enjoyed reading Time Magazine's top 10 buzzwords -- #9 - Tweet. tags : education , learning , twitter Photos of Digiteen Island from Trevor Meiste...

Few people know that Julie Lindsay and I have a new right arm.  An educator who has come along side us to help with the dream of promoting global collaboration between students on a massive scale. Steve Madsen from Australia just stepped in and volunteered to help us a while back and has been one of those mind readers, I'm here to help, I'll do what it takes kind of people that permeate the grassroots sorts of projects that so many of us are joining now. People like Steve are the glue that holds projects together and the grease that makes the wheels move a bit more rapidly.   Steve is amazing and has tirelessly helped us with "wiki cleanup" (when the wiki strains to hold up under lots of editing, sometimes we end up with things deleted that shouldn't), judging, scheduling meetings, providing feedback and assistance to other teachers, and stepping into the leadership role when Julie or I are out. And what Steve would never tell you is that he just received ...

Wireless Connectivity in the Future - Flat Classroom Project Fascinating video from a flat classroom student -- I love the scene with one student on the moon talking to another in the clouds. This is an excellent work from Heather in Kansas. This won the top award on the project tags : education , flat , classroom Google and Twitter Hookup: Beautiful Babies Created at CostPerNews Google and Twitter are now becoming connected via Google Friend Connect. tags : education , twitter FOXNews.com - Australian Couple Loses Home Via Facebook - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News Facebook notification is a binding document in Australia. Shows the evolution of mail. tags : education , learning , web2.0 Gmail: Gmail Adds Multiple Session Info and Remote Signout Session management for gmail lets you know how many places that you are logged in. tags : education , google , gmail Digiteen Dream Team: New Protest With class ending this week, my students want to once more go into...

As shocking as it seems, an Australian couple is being served legally via Facebook after all other attempts to reach them for defaulting on their loan have been exhausted. "The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court last Friday approved lawyer Mark McCormack's application to use Facebook to serve the legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact the couple at the house and by e-mail. Australian courts have given permission in the past for people to be served via e-mail and text messages when it was not possible to serve them in person." Another example of how online spaces have offline consquences.  We have our physical space and our online spaces but both, are REAL. Some people make the mistake of saying "real" to talk about the physical world - that is a misnomer - real life is made up of physical spaces and online spaces inhabited by humans. This will be an example that we discuss in my class next semester. ...

Today at At  Tuesday Dec. 16 3pm EST, 8pm GMT and 7am Wednesday for Australia we will be in Elluminate for the Awards ceremony for this year's Flat Classroom project . Join us in Elluminate at http://tinyurl.com/564323 Related articles by Zemanta Flat Classroom 2008 Project Announcement Flat Classroom 2008 Teacher Summit 12/3/2008 3 pm - 4 pm EST - You're invited Flat Classroom 2008 Classrooms Announced - 17 classes from 8 countries 7 Steps to a Flat Classroom Video Tutoria

I'm such a sucker for inspirational speeches but this makes me want to laugh, cry, and make fun of myself. This is nice for a fun watch and something to take your mind off the stress of ending the semester (For those of us in the northern hemisphere.) How many movies can you name?

I had a great conversation at the local coffee shop with the owner, who is an amazing professional dancer. We were talking about the beauty of dance and he made a comment that so interested me. He said, "Dancing with a live orchestra is one of the greatest thrills of my life. What most people don't realize is that the conductor watches the dancers and conducts the music to synchronize with the dance. The conductor is a dancer. Just as much a dancer as those on the stage." Wow! It struck me and I thought of my favorite scene of my life from the nutcracker as performed by the Bolshoi Ballet (I love the part where the lead just floats across the stage as her partner guides her! Gives me chills!) Then, I thought of the duplicity of roles in my own life. The teacher is a student. Part of the process, conducting things to make them conducive to learning, watching the learners -- learning how they learn and customizing the classroom environment to the uniqueness of the stu...

NIBIPEDIA : Together We Learn Mashing video and wikis into an educational mashup of sorts. tags : education , wiki , video , digitalstorytelling , technology , techintegrator , edu_newapp Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .