Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

The White House has announced the 85 names of Outstanding Math and Science Teachers ! Yes! This is wonderful. No it isn't. What it really is -- a missed opportunity to truly improve STEM education by networking. By letting you SEE what they are doing. What they should have included?  A twitter list of those who twitter. Already made for you. Every name should be hyperlinked. Every name. We should be able to find their school and information and even their classroom without having to search. Links to their application and portfolio. An RSS feed that allows you to follow all of them with a click whether through a reader or something like Flipboard . Dead Links Kill Progress As it is, this lovely press release which is making the rounds is dead. It is a list of names of living breathing teachers doing amazing work but dead because it has no living hyperlinks to enrich us. I should think better coming from an administration that is so tech savvy. And yes, I teach my s...

YapTime Goes to School « YapTime Blog Another private communication website for younger kids and teachers to link as well as parents. Looks like a cool tool. tags: education learning digitalcitizenship Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Image by Terry Freedman via Flickr Julie with our dear friend Terry Freedman from the UK. Just up on the ISTE website, my dear friend and Flat Classroom co-founder, Julie Lindsay , is now an ISTE board member. Thank you to everyone who supported her run. And most of all, thank you to Julie who let herself run again. This was her third run. Most people give up after the first time. This is certainly one thing that characterizes Julie - she never gives up and persists. How would your life be different if you just did something ONE MORE TIME? Thank you to the network of Tweeters, bloggers, and teachers. Although this means I'll see less of Julie, I think that she will do great work on the ISTE board. Related articles ISTE Members, I am asking you to vote for Julie Lindsay #voteforjulie #iste (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) The Importance of Affecting Change from Within - ISTE Board Elections - Vote Now! (123elearning.blogspot.com) Dreams When We're Awake (coolcatte...

ifttt / Coming Soon Toni Olivieri-Barton talked about this cool website in our Flat Classroom certified teacher last night. tags: education learning planning lessons teachers Mobl21 - Multiple Mobile Devices, One Solution Mobile devices are an important part of deploying knowledge and content delivery. This system is relatively inexpensive and not only uses an app but can link to sms and interactive voice response in countries without a lot of access. Exciting potential for this one. tags: education fcbook communication lower_school upper_school middle_school post_secondary Brooks Service Center (1) One of my students is using what he learn...

Google Docs is increasingly becoming a powerful file management tool with many new ways of uploading. It is very important as you upload more files to use tags and folders (color coding is great) to keep things organized. Folder Upload lets you upload whole folders to Google Docs. Optical Character Recognition option for images. This means that the text in your images will become searchable but also editable. So, that old letter your school uses from 10 years a go doesn't have to be retyped. Tip: Always check OCR converted docs. Sometimes text doesn't convert properly. Drag and Drop Upload using Chrome, Safari, and Firefox on the PC or Mac. What Happens if I run out of Space? Of course, Google is selling additional space for $.25 a GB should you run out of your 1GB of free storage that comes with Google Docs. This still isn't as easy as dropbox but for most purposes for my students it is helpful. If you use Google Docs or support it, you must follow the Goog...

Flat classroom conference on vineme Playing with Flat Classroom conference on Vineme. Recommended by Angela Maiers - I'm still learning about it. It is using regular tagging AND time tagging. tags: education Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Home Screen of my Flipboard Flipboard is a phenomenal reading app for the ipad and was the big reason I begged my family to give me one for my birthday. However, because so little content is really produced FOR the flipboard, you have to know how to add it. You only get two screens of content (for now) so use it well. To get Started ... To follow these instructions, you'll need to download Flipboard onto your iPad . A look at what is on my flipboard.... Before we begin, let's take a look at screenshots of my two Flipboard screens. The sources of information are printed in the top left corner of each board.   Sharing from Flipboard Before we get to the reading part, you can share content within Flipboard.   What you can do depends upon the content source. If you're reading from Facebook, your like and comment buttons show. If you're reading from Twitter, you have retweet, retweet with comment and favorite. Google reader gives the sharing feature...

 I found this copy of my youngest son's hand on my desk in the office this morning. I'm running to get dressed in time to make it to school so I can get grades in the system for progress reports. It made me smile. As we watched the amazing golf classic, the Greatest Game Ever Played last week, we talked about the power that the 10 year old caddy had on the golfer with his amazing optimism and encouragement. As I read Merlin Mann's beautiful post over the weekend, I see how his baby daughter has squeezed some of the most amazing music out of her tough Dad. My family is my hand. They give me a hand as they love, hug, and accept me. May I never place any technology or anything above them for the time is fleeting. I cried Saturday as my sixteen year old borrowed the car for the first time. Praying for God to bring him home and struck with the idiocy of myself that I never understood the tough-ness of a parent letting go. Holding that baby in your arms and nursing them...

Internet safety for teens: Top 5 ways teens are getting into trouble online (and what you can do) | Sync™ Blog This is a good list but instead of the IRL requirement for friending - I do think that those they don't know IRL need some verification. tags: education learning safety Facebook privacy Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

#tweettheresults hashtag on Twitter - official protest hashtag We've seen people lose their job over Tweets and we've seen them get jobs through Tweets . We've seen marriage proposals and divorce notifications . We've even see Charlie Sheen earn six figures for a tweet . Now, we might just see the balance in someone's bank account change as political tweeters in Canada openly plan to disregard the election "Twitter blackout"  law and could land themselves with a 25,000 dollar fine. Canadian officials plan to enforce a 73 year old law that slaps a person who "prematurely releases election results" with the penalty.Originally intended to keep voting in the east from influencing that in western Canada by not allowing the "transmission of election results" across time zones, critics say this was created before social media. Canada has six as the world's second largest country. #tweettheresults hashtag was in use by y...

Earth Day 2011: A Billion Acts of Green® | EDN Educators' Network Earth day is Friday, April 22nd (the day this posts to my blog.) Get involved in the billion acts of green. tags: education earthday Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

" Successful, happy people have good habits that are life enhancing ." Brian Tracy, Focal Point loc. 203 What You DO Makes YOU! Draw a line down the middle of a page. Make a list of the things you do EVERY day or almost every day. On the right side, list the end result of a person who does that every day. Some rights reserved by eren | thisvintagechica Examples, Spend time talking with my spouse --> I know my spouse. Eat a DQ Blizzard every day --> Gain weight. Exercise --> Stay healthy. Lose my temper every day --> heart attack. sit on the couch and watch TV for 5 hours every night --> weight gain, lack of sleep? Be honest. What you DON'T do makes you TOO! Make a list of the things you don't do in your day. What is the result of NOT doing that? Some rights reserved by ganesha.isis Examples, I don't smoke --I can be healthy. I don't spent time with my children. --> They will not talk to me. I don't exercize. -- ...

NBC Learn and Turning Foundation Grant From turning Foundation: "The Turning Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, in partnership with NBC Learn and Turning Technologies today announced the Spring 2011 Classroom Improvement Technology Grant. The goal of this joint effort is to help educators develop 21st Century classrooms and improve achievement by providing effective, engaging technology and professional development tools from multiple industry leading companies. Turning Foundation Director, John Wilson stated, “With our third CIT grant, we’ve partnered with the educational division of one of the world’s leading news organizations. NBC Learn’s rich library of historic film and video archives combined with Turning Technologies’ student response system is an ideal solution for teachers to engage students in the learning process. We believe this grant award will positively impact learning outcomes and increase the overall success of...

Join Well Approving people in spaces takes a bit of time. It is so important to know that when you ask to join a wiki or Diigo group or grouped on Linked in that you let the person approving you KNOW why you want to join . When You Don't If you don't, you force the person approving to go through and look at your profile to determine if you are a spammer. Sure, a spammer can lie, but usually they just don't put why! How to Get "Accepted" If someone puts a message: "Vicki, I heard about this group in a Diigo presentation you did at ISTE last year." Image via Wikipedia BANG they are approved immediately. But if they put nothing, I wait until I have time which is usually once a month for the Diigo educators group . If you are upset that you're not getting approved to join things more quickly, maybe it is because you aren't identifying yourself and why you want to join. People who identify why they want to join a space are showing good ci...

I have two very amazing young men looking over my shoulder as I write this post. They have a challenge and some questions to ask you and your students. We are looking for people and students who are willing to UNWIRE for a day. That's right. One whole day! Now, if you need to use technology for work/school that is ok. But, besides that we want your cell phone off, your xbox off, and even your TV off for a day. Are you and your students willing to take the challenge? Why or why not? Either way we want you to fill out our survey! They would like as many people as possible to take the challenge and fill out their survey between now and next Monday at 8:15 am Eastern. If you're NOT willing - go ahead and fill out the survey. If you are willing, come back and fill out this survey AFTER you have completed the challenge! (even if you fail) What do you think your students will say? This is part of our Digiteen Action project . <p>Loading...</p>

Feel free to copy and paste and send this home. During the month of April kindergarten.com is giving away 24 free apps on the iphone/ipod for kindergarters to celebrate Autism Awareness month . You can download all of the apps by typing in this address on the computer that you use to sync with your ipod/ iphone and it will download all 24 apps for you: http://tinyurl.com/freekapps Hat Tip: Educational Technology Blog Related articles iPads for Kindergarteners: Experts Applaud District's Decision (livescience.com) Seven free iOS apps to help you out in the lab (tuaw.com)

Writing Better Blog Posts: What You NEED to Know | The Edublogger Excellent post from Sue Waters about writing better blog posts. tags: education blogging 24 Free Kindergarten.com Apps 24 free kindergarte apps from kindergarten.com Download all 24 of these apps. (From The Edcational Technology blog) by jonathan Wylie. tags: education learning Scholastic: Best in Tech Today | Livescribe Education I love my livescribe pen and agree with this review even if it is posted on the Livescribe website. tags: education technology innovation iAdvocate for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store Free iAdvocate app t...

The free iAdvocate app from Syracuse University ( announced today ) may just be the future of learning and helping parents advocate for their children with learning disabilities. If not, it is certainly the future of successful, useful grants to universities. What could be more useful than releasing free apps to help learning? It reminds me of the math app I blogged about a while back that is being given free by mobile carriers in Denmark to improve math scores. The way to improvement may just be through our hand(helds.) Related articles Math Apps on Mobile Phones Free to Students in Denmark for 2011 (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) The Case for Digital Citizenship in Schools (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Friends & Family (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) A Lesson in Simple Augmented Reality (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) 5 Wonderful Ways to Be Weird (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)

Laffy' s Flickr PhotoStream Like a gas tank running on empty, we teachers who give too much without refilling our tanks can start sputtering and stopping during the long haul of the last six weeks of schools. Dickens' "these are the best of times, these are the worst of times" are never more true. Let's contemplate the things that help us stay motivated, excited, and high performing during the last few weeks of school. 1 - See Long Term. I look at every student and know my time is short with them. I ask myself: What are the things that if I do not address that someone will say "why didn't someone ever teach __ that?" What is something I know of that each student is good at doing? (put in on report card comments, or tell them.) What am I teaching with how students earn grades? (A grade given for doing nothing teaches a harmful lesson.) 2- Be a Blessing. Blessing takes many forms. It can mean speaking well and lifting someone up but mak...