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Find more photos like this on Flat Classroom Conference From about 45 minutes from the time of this post, the students and educators that are part of the Flat Classroom Mini-conference being hosted by the American School of Bombay in Mumbai, India at ASB Unplugged will be presenting and YOU can participate. We have been blessed with a 50 something group of students and educators in a project-based miniconference that will have participants thoroughly understanding the nuances of planning and bringing to fruition a Flat Classroom - style project. In 45 minutes, eleven teams will be giving their presentations. They are filling out their wikis and preparing to present as we speak. Here is how you may join us: Ustream video - http://asbunplugged2010.flatclassroomproject.org/UStream.tv Our Wiki - http://asbunplugged2010.flatclassroomproject.org  Our Ning - http://flatclassroomconference.ning.com The projects that have been invented: Like-write. come scrivere. مثل الك...

Just a little peek at the ways that our students are "traveling" to India. Here, I posed the questions to our tour guide for the fifth graders and filmed as if they are traveling beside her in the bus as we tour the city. The fifth graders have had us on a "scavenger hunt" of sorts about all types of things India. Some of these things are not "in" Mumbai or not easily observable, so we asked our delightful tour guide to help us and explain the many things. The fifth grade, in particular, should watch these with their scavenger hunt in hand and "sit" beside Mrs. Jaishri Vashisht to learn about the items in their scavenger hunt. The rest of you may learn from her as well. Enjoy! It is about sixteen minutes long. Mrs. Jaishri's contact information is below: Jaishri Vashisht Joyful Journeys Pvt. Lts. jshri2509@hotmail.com www.touringindia.org Phone 26183779, 66302812 New Delhi (She covers the whole country and does wonderful student exchange ...

Reflections: Social Media and NGO/CSR Workshop in India - Beth's Blog: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change Read Beth Kanter's recommendations on traveling abroad and teaching internationally - great read! tags : education , teaching , conference , learning International Online Conference 2010 » Program From John Walber of the learning times in my inbox: "I thought you might enjoy this thought-provoking interview featuring internationally-recognized speaker and facilitator Nancy White. In this 8-minute podcast, Nancy questions whether we should be setting up our learning programs as "communities" and discusses the pros and cons with LearningTimes GreenRoom hosts Susan Manning and Dan Balzer:" My response was this: "I will say that I'm not a big advocate of Professional learning communities - I prefer to call it Personal Learning network because I think that each person's network should be distinct...

If this blog seems a little quiet this week, it is because I have a group of students and Mrs. Betty, the curriculum director at ASB Unplugged and the Flat Classroom mini-conference.It is like 2 am in the morning here and we've been traveling since 9 am Saturday morning (we lost 10 1/2 hours.) What a trip, but wanted all of you to know where the ole cool cat was heading. In fact, if the weather getting off the plane is any indication, maybe I should temporarily be the Hot Cat Teacher. ;-) Related articles by Zemanta Immersing in all things India: The India Immersion Project (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Join the Flat Classroom Workshop in India, 2010 (123elearning.blogspot.com) Press Release: Flat Classroom™ Project 2009-3 (123elearning.blogspot.com)

As I said on Twitter this weekend: "When you need to focus your presentation, get offline and focus on your presentation."  This is my letter to administrators about focus.  As I read the story of Monica Keeler leaving Myspace for Facebook   the words on her blog "This is the Story of a Girl" echoed in my brain: "To my friends and colleagues at MySpace , some parting advice: It is imperative that MySpace puts in place strong technical leadership who can attract good technical talent and make well-informed decisions. It is important that they stay connected to rest of the world and work on interoperable standards and solid products which benefit the end user. Many of my fellow engineers have fantastic ideas and a plan for phased delivery." So,here it goes. Dear Administrator, I was thinking that really you could replace Myspace with YOUR DISTRICT or SCHOOL name and also instead of end user - we should replace it with students - so this is how it...

In English-Crazy China, 8D World Teaches Kids To Speak In Virtual Worlds; Lands A Deal With CCTV MAjor innovations in Language Learning are happening in the form of some of the first and best edu-gaming sites. This site is paid for by parents and uses voice feedback to let students "level up." tags : education , language_teacher , edu_trends , edu_newapp , language Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Media Excellent McArthur foundation white paper that I think is an important read for IT integrators and leaders. tags : education , learning , edu_trends , edu_news , bestpractices Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

In the PhysOrg.com article What Do Students Know? it basically underlines the fear that many have about the way that we are testing.  Granted, this is a niche area, (astrophysics) but we're teaching the names of planets and basic items, and yet students (and their teachers) have the following misconceptions: They think there is no gravity in space. They think that space telescopes are put in space to get them "closer." The don't know that the sun is a star. They think that there are stars closer than Pluto besides the sun. Other findings: "The SAO researchers studied how these apparently seductive misconceptions could distract students away from choosing the correct answer in multiple-choice tests. They argue that such "distractors" should be included in evaluation tests but note that most often are not, and therefore that results from tests designed to measure student understanding are misleading, and that evaluation of the pedagogy is therefo...

So, today is the ten year anniversary of the St. Valentines Day tornadoes that devastated my precious hometown of Camilla, Georgia . In church this morning some videos and photographs were shared from that time which brought on flashbacks and brought memories to my mind that I wasn't really prepared to handle. When I see the frivolity around this day for many, it just leaves me feeling that the point is totally missed. My precious eight year old ran into the den and threw his arms around my neck and said "Happy Valetimes, Mommy" and plopped a quick smack upon my lips. Valen-times Yes, that pretty much sums it up. With the tornado and the 22 deaths and 250 homes destroyed, I learned that the time is short. One second my town was quiet and at peace and the next moment a freight train of three monstrous tornadoes were tearing through homes and lives like a ravenous dog into a poorly closed trash can. I shall relish the time. My husband is sitting here playing his favorit...

FOXNews.com - Google Buzz Has Serious Privacy Flaws So, it looks like that Google Buzz can reveal who you are emailing and talking to. Not really a problem for me - but for journalists who protect their sources, a big one. tags : education , learning , tools Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Brain Rules for Presenters View more presentations from garr . I agree with Garr Reynolds , Brain Rules is a great book. I wish more presenters and teachers would read the book AND view this presentation.  Garr is such a great presenter and his book Presentation Zen is an important book for all presenters to read.  I love how he relates presentation skills to the Brain research from John Medina .  Share this presentation! When I see really good presentations like this "Out of the box" presentation, I think to myself "I want to do that." The Box View more presentations from Scott Schwertly . Then, I open up those slides and start editing.  Perhaps one of the most important things about working on presentations was quoted in Garr Reynold's presentation at the top -- that to put together a really good presentation that you must get OFF THE GRID. Disconnect. Think.  Challenge yourself. Often the best content for presentations is written in my journal i...

Web 2.0: New Tools, New Treasures This is a fascinating tutorial about Web 2.0 tools using "jog the web" it is interesting how this is set up and is a take on a webquest, but the use of frames is really cool. Nice thing to share with beginners or anyone wanting to learn more about these tools. tags : education , learning , tool , web2 , all_teachers , professionaldevelopment Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

In eleven days I, Mrs. Betty (my dear friend the curriculum director) and seven students will head to Mumbai India for ASB Unplugged and the Flat Classroom mini-conference . And we're taking a whole heap of 2nd through 8th graders with us. Meet the India Immersion project.  Inspired by Silvia Tolisano 's Travel Through Space and Time Presentation in the K12 Online 2007 , the students are "traveling" with us to and through India in what we hope will be a powerful vicarious learning experience.  In vicarious learning, you learn by watching another. Each of us has a classroom that we will email and skype with while we are there. We have a private wiki (sorry, with the young children there, it MUST be private) where we are sharing the voicethreads (grades 2-5) and links to classblogmeister (grades 6-8) where students will be sharing. My tenth grade computer science class are the self-named "Indie-techs" (a double meaning there - they are independent and ...

Flat Classroom Project: Fresh start in a new world « HeyJude Judy O'connell delivered a marvelous Flat Classroom 2010 keynote! Just a marvelous job! tags : education , flatclassroom , learning Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox - google buzz - Lifehacker OK, so lots of things are pretty cool about Google Buzz but I absolutely hate that my already full inbox is now full of Google Buzz stuff. I just want to keep it separate. From lifehacker, just filter out label:buzz to go somewhere else. Done! tags : education , tools , google Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

"...for knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say... it's all owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn -- it's all owing to the good superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me..." Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain , Kindle location 604 Sometimes we teach students about life amidst our humanness... Ponderings on Tuesday Night So, I've tried to play with Google Buzz , the new gmail inbox morphing social media-ish way to do email.  I wasn't that excited about Google Wave , but from reading about Google Buzz am more excited.  Unfortunately, you can't "get" Buzz - it has to be given to you - so I'm waiting (and trying the "cut in line" method advocated by PC World .) And yet... I keep thinking about National Honor Society initiation this morning... ...

"Sardis was a city of peace, not the peace won through battle, but the peace of a man whose dreams are dead and whose mind is asleep, the peace of lethargy and evasion," I came across this quote while studying Revelation and no- this is not a "Bible" lesson per se, but one about dreams. This previous quote was from William Barclay in his Letters to the Seven Churches (New York: Abigdon, 1957), 71 as cited in Gabelein and Douglas, The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 448. These words completely haunted me as I pondered them.  How many people do you know who have silently let their dreams die and their minds go to sleep? Do you know someone who has the peace of lethargy and evasion? This has many terms: "He's biding his time." "She's just waiting until retirement." "I'm stuck, so I might as well make the best of it." Now, you and I have sacrifices to make and truthfully, some days I question myself.  We all...

Why Geolocation Services Are Exciting For Poets, Musicians, Educators & Comedians Geolocation overview from Marshall Kirkpatrick at the Read Write Web. Marshall says: "The era of location-as-platform for software development is just beginning. No longer of interest only to uber-geeks, everyday people are now reporting their physical locations online, often through their phones. Geolocation services are hot and ever more prominent ones (like Facebook) are believed to be right around the corner. This is a very exciting development for lovers of innovation. Today we asked some of our favorite web-heads why they are excited about geolocation and below you'll find their answers. We hope you'll share with us what you too, dear readers, think of this hot new trend online." tags : education , learning , geolocation , gps Angela Maiers Educational Services: Are You Making Others Greater Than Yourself (#GTY)? I just ordered this book on my Kindle - from Angela Maiers: ...

Some really exciting things happened this past week. Just thought I'd share with you today about some of the things happening in my classroom in the hopes that there may be something to ponder here for you.  It is every day to me, so really, none of it seems particularly revolutionary... that is unless I compare it to what my room looked like about four years a go before my teaching model and tools transformed. 8th Grade Keyboarding I still use the Old textbook my Mom used. (She founded this computer lab!) We don't use any video game or tools until the entire keyboard is learned. Here, five weeks into the semester they are about to have learned all of the keys.  They had their first timed writings last week and have already hit 49 words per minute as their average. This is largely because we teach in fifth grade (pre-puberty) although then, they average around 27 words per minute. We do team goals and I have an excel spreadsheet to total everything. I reward the students ...

The battle for the eyes is getting heated. If you'll read Context is King: How Videos Are Found and Consumed Online , some very telling trends are unveiled that make advertisers very uncomfortable. The article says: "According to a recent NY Times article, in the 1952-53 season, more than 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen.  In fact, up until twenty years ago, you could buy a 30-second spot on CBS, NBC or ABC and reach “everyone.”  Today, NBC’s prime time reach is 5%.  Sure, NBC is lagging CBS and ABC, but neither the Tiffany network nor Disney’s counterpart is faring much better.  The secret’s out: fewer people watch TV and teenagers spend every waking minute connected to the Internet, increasingly through the mobile web." So, how are these ads going to be served up? Cell phones, social media. Other interesting stats.  Here are the averages of a youtube video: "It will garner 500 views over time 25% of thos...