Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Good morning my friends. This morning I'm tired. Are you? We've got the Flat Classroom projects - the 3 we are currently running, kicking off right now and it takes a lot of energy and effort to get things going, even though we have fantastic project managers and jam up teachers. It is easy to put names and numbers on  a web page but to aim towards 100% collaboration by all students is a goal that requires quite a bit of work. My List is a Nightmare Needless to say, my list was becoming a nightmare. Lists are nightmares anyway. The are consistent reminders of all the things I haven't done. I'm reading the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life and it makes a heck of a lot of sense to me. Attracted by the mention of one of my favorite concepts, Kaizen, or the process of ongoing improvement. I am attracted by a method that is less about the method and more about the tasks at hand. I used Franklin Covey for years until I had children. When I had ch...

The Global Classroom Project Some of our certified teachers are helping on the organization team for this new project. It is exciting to see global collaboration take off. tags: Education globalcollaboration Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Today, I would like to announce that I've signed a contract with the Lifetime Channel and will become one of the bloggers for their morning show, the Balancing Act . Cool Cat Teacher is still here and I'm writing about educational topics and you'll keep getting what you've been getting here. As soon as my blog goes "live" over there, I'll write for a slightly different audience - primarily women - about balancing your life and also pull in my parenting and classroom experience. Additionally, over here, about once a month, you'll see me share some of the things going on in Lifetime's Balancing Act show that relate to you as they have a whole segment every Friday about the classroom and education, the Parent/ Teacher corner and are part of a campaign called the " war on obesity ." Two things which I'm passionate about. This will bring Cool Cat Teacher to a wider audience but also let me write about some other things I've been wan...

Education Week Teacher: How Jay-Z Can Help Us Remix Education Article in edweek about innovation (using rap music and Jay-z as the interesting backdrop) and wrapping up with a well needed discussion about teacherpreneurship. tags: Education teacherpreneur innovation Teachers see change coming in Common Core State Standards  | ajc.com Article about Georgia Dept of Ed rollout of common core standards and their self admitted botched rollout of state standards several years back. The worst issue from my discussions with Georgia Public school teachers was the attempt at Math I, II, III, an attempt to combine Algebra, Geometry, Trig and Statistics. Not only did the teachers complain but so did parents. I know of several math teachers who quit over this. This is what happens in experiments like this. Stand...

My son has been looking for epic music on youtube and listens to these amazing one hour mixes of music while he is writing papers for his honors English class. I've embedded the video below and played it while writing this post. (Equally breathtaking are the graphics which the YouTube creator says he made with "alphacoders." ) Do we have epic moments? I had one Sunday as I ran at the school. I looked over the school, snapped a picture of a tremendously beautiful cloud and posted it to the school's Facebook page . Listening to this music inspires me to be more. It helps me realize that I am pushing forward towards something excellent. As I ran 2 miles last night between dropping my son off at Tae Kwon Do and our Flat Classroom Certified Teachers meeting, I was listening to another song, Citizen Soldier , and a line intrigued me because it made me think of so many of you teachers I know: "The strongest among you may not wear a crown."...

Sendoid - Instant, Private, P2P File Transfers A new private way to share files. (Hat tip Julie Lindsay.) tags: education p2p filesharing web2 edu_newapp AppleInsider | NFL's Buccaneers equip every player with an Apple iPad 2 NFL teams go with ipads for players instead of paper and playbooks. They like the feature of being able to wipe the ipad if it goes missing (try doing that with a paper playbook.) Cool. tags: education sports Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

I couldn't believe my eyes. As I drove up to the stadium for the second time Saturday night, there was our 18-0 state winning football coach grilling hamburgers before the game! SHOCK! Why would the coach be anywhere but in the locker room? There are tons of us "unimportant" people out here who will grill hamburgers so he can do his important job: coaching the players. Only one person can be the head coach - him! Eye on the Ball Whew! On closer look it wasn't him, but it struck me that I know micromanagers who are the same way. As I walked into the game, I looked at the two teachers taking the money and pictured the head coach sitting there. As I went to the concession stand, I pictured my shock if he were behind the counter. As I walked up to the press box to help my student who is doing the sound for the games get ready, I pictured him getting ready to call the game and run the clock. It just wouldn't be possible. Not only would it not be possible b...

Cinch - Create and share micro podcasts, images and text updates on cinch.fm A website for creating podcasts from your iphone, phone, or computer. It has a lot of features odeo used to have which was my old podcast channel. I'm working to set up a new one here. tags: education podcasting K12 Online Conference | 2011 K-12 Online Conference Call for Proposals and Announcements K12 online conference is just two weeks after GEC. This is another place where you may want to present as well. tags: education learning Strands and Submissions - The Global Education Collaborative Go here to create proposals for the Global Education Conference for teachers, students, curriculum, or a...

Google's nGram viewer lets you search over 5 million books for the instances of words. Imagine it as a search engine into the uses of words since 1800. To better understand it, view the Tedx Boston talk " A Picture is Worth 500 Billion Words " by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel. It is quite interesting and still a big imperfect as the uses of words change so dramatically. You can see that in this search (shown in the chart below) I did for the words school, teacher, and principal. Do we now call principals administrators instead? If we do, then administrator is used in many professions and the results won't just show schools. Comparing Teacher, Principal, and School and the use of these words in books. I also find it fascinating in the chart belowwhere I searched for educational technology, project based learning, differentiated instruction, classroom management, class size. Here we can see that as we talked about class size in ...

Welcome to FolderBoy Interesting website that organizes tasks by folders. I will try this out. tags: Education productivity lists Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

School Library Journal had an article yesterday on how Overdrive now is compatible with the Kindle . Overdrive is a popular ebook "check out" service used by many public and some progressive school libraries. As I checked the prices, I found that a license for a US school of up to a certain size is around $4,000 and it includes $2,000 towards 150-200 ebooks a year to add to your collection and you can add more. (This is only available for US schools presently.) The fascinating thing is that you can have a 24/7 online library for students to check out with a customized book collection set up for just your students. Rock, Paper, Ebook Cavemen wrote on rocks in caves. Then, with Egyptian papyrus, paper was born. Now, with Kindles, Ipads and the like, electronic paper is in its infancy. There are things not perfect about ebooks right now. Earlier this year, Overdrive received quite a bit of negative press for their "use limit" for some books. (Read the Librar...

This is the view from where I sit right now. I am taking up money at the softball gate in 90 something degree weather in the hot blazing sun. Or I was a minute a go. A Little Umbrella  Another teacher came by and she gave me her umbrella.  It means a lot because now I can read, grade papers on my iPad, and blog!  You can see the umbrella there in the picture looking out on the field where our 16-0 football team is practicing. (3-0 on this season) If you look hard, you might just see our headmaster / head football coach, Ross Worsham, out there working. I mention him because he did a little thing on Monday in our faculty meeting. Except it meant a lot. A Little Question   that was a Big Deal Ross read our devotional made 3 announcements and then he said, "I want to hear from you. Is there anything I need to notice or be aware of even if it is little, I want to know." So the teachers told him a few little things - noise in the hall after middle scho...

Take time to thank a teacher...publicly. Now you can. The website www.thanksforteaching.us lets us thank our teachers publicly. I just love this website and wept as I perused the first page. Even if your students don't write on this page, just a glimpse lets you be inspired that there are GREAT teachers out there... tons of them. "Thank you for dedicating your life to this hard profession and managing to make it look simple." or "...thanks for reading my reflection papers word per word. You're the only person who spent time to figure out what was wrong with me during those years." or this poingnant one from a ninth grader: "Dear Prev, Thanks for Being the Man (Or Mentor, if you want to get Classical) You inspired me to interact with others as a human being, wielding charisma and humilty in equal, devastating measure." or "Ms.Minchak, Thanks for all the times you made me understand, and not memorize. You inspired ...

Successful Online Presentation Skills for Students With more than 30% of high school students now taking at least one class online and almost 20% of middle schoolers, it is time to understand the nuances of engaging in online classrooms and presenting online. As part of the Flat Classroom project, co-founder, Vicki Davis, has helped thousands of students learn how to present online. Learn the tips and tricks to help students engage quickly and be successful in online spaces (and make it easier for you to manage as well.) This free webinar is Tuesday, September 19, 2011 at 3pm Eastern Time. Register now and join us. tags: education flatclassroom online blackboard elluminate edu_news edu_trends bestpractices Project Tomorrow 2010 Findings Som...

I had to smile as I saw this on a wiki page tonight as I am entering final grades for progress reports tomorrow: Students want to have their own place on the Net. A place that is theirs. Every time I bring these digital natives into a place where they can create a full-blown page of their own making I'm overwhelmed by their desire to own and create things. They don't just want networks of friends - certain kids like that and others don't really get into it. They want to create. You won't know you're a good swimmer until you get in the water Students don't just "know" the Net and how to use it. They don't just automatically "get" collaboration. Yes, their certainly take to it quickly but a person may just "know" how to swim but will never know he knows until he comes in contact with water. There is a whole world of experience out there that students will not get just on Facebook and in email. (And students without acces...

Snap Links Plus :: Add-ons for Firefox This handy firefox add on lets you hold down the right mouse button and draw a square over a set of links. Then, it will open each of those links into its own tab. This is useful if you have students placing links on a page and need to open each link to assess them. This is the only firefox extension that I found compatible with the newest version of firefox, although it is preliminary, I've found it to work fine for me. tags: education assessment firefox edu_newapp techintegrator web2 technology Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Valve offering original Portal for free until September 20 | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog The physics game "portal" is free until sept 20. Download now. tags: Physics education Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Parents’ behavior linked to kids’ videogame playing | MSU News | Michigan State University Parents who have negative relationships with their children are more likely to have kids who play video games. I don't know. What causes the negative relationship? Aren't teenage boys attracted to video games. ARen't they more likely to have tension with parents anyway. Here is a classic case of causation or correlation. tags: education videogames Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Adobe Photoshop Touch apps for iPad now available in Apple App Store « Adobe Nordic Blog iPad PhotoShop Touch apps. tags: education adobe Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Get the facts when you're teaching a child how to read. I have a child with dyslexia and one of my biggest ambitions is to help my children love reading. Mrs. Grace Adkins in our learning lab is an invaluable help in this way and sent me some links to current research on the topic. I may not be an official "reading" teacher but I am my child's reading teacher. I cried this summer when my fourth grader became so fluent that he's poured through one of the Chroncile of Narnia books and is now on his second book. He reads every night with me - we take turns and he's nailing it. I really wondered if I'd ever see the day. We've done multisensory everything, spent summers, extra help, whatever it takes. Reading opens up the world and is dear to my heart. I love it and I want my children to love it too! A book recommendation from Mrs. Adkins Mrs. Adkins just sent me a note recommending this book: Ready to Read: A Multisensory Approach to Language-based ...

Don't write when you're tired. Don't write when you're upset. Don't write when you'll regret what you said later. I'm all of those things. September 11th makes us all sad. Business taxes are due Thursday and the headache is unbelievable this year w/ Flat Classroom, Cool Cat Teacher and my old hosting business. The Flat Classroom book is so close and in final copy editing mode but a last minute glitch with some important graphics has me ready to jump. I haven't been still or really rested in days. I'm tired. More than tired. Last night, my son's football team which has been blessed to win 15 straight games (state champs last year) won 43-0. There was a poor boy on the other team who was so tired and played the whole game. He kept falling to his knees after every play gasping for air and then he'd pull up again to go play again. He didn't quit but I kept pointing him out to my husband but inwardly I admired his ...

If it doesn't look good it isn't going to get a good grade. No longer in the age of the typewriter, we are now able to choose from many different fonts and sizes. In the case of fonts, less is more sometimes but picking the perfect size and type can be tricky. A font is a "set of type." When writing my graphic design curriculum, I turned to my sister, Sarah Adams, who has three degrees in the subject, is an online professor for a major art university, and owns her own firm. (If you've seen a magazine in the US, you've seen her ads - designed right down the road here in Camilla, Ga.) There are two basic decisions that you have to make about a font: the font face itself, and the font size. I'm going to come back to font face and font families in a later post, but first lets assume you're using ONE font family and look at selecting font size. Pick the Perfect Font Size Using The Font Formula 0-1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-55-89... Yes, this is...

"What we have is a failure to communicate," says the warden to Cool Hand Luke in the movie by the same name. Exactly. Between Firefox 7 Beta, the add ons for the browser, my free antivirus software Avast, and the upgrade to Blogger, something is wrong. I have several computers that I work on: my Vista PC at home, my large Win 7 Lenovo Think Center m90z at home, and my HP Win 7 64 bit laptop at school. All nice, well tended machines. But there are times when NOTHING works right and I've been having them for the past three or four weeks with this blog. It came to a head on Monday when I wrote an excellent post responding to a New York Times article that I dare not link to. Not because I don't want to give you the link, but because, I've found if I open a different window and go there and copy the link, that somehow blogger will stop responding as it tries to save a draft and I'll lose this post too. I lost that post. I hope to write it again -- when ...

One of the most unbelievably annoying things in my house is to run out of cat food. We have two cats and they just go crazy. "Good morning, Boots." "Meow." "Morning, Crispy." "Reow" (Yes, he has an "r" sound instead of the "m") Then all I hear is "Meow. Reow. Meow. Reow." It escalates until it is is unbelievable. You can't get anything done. Don't pass Go. Don't collect $200. Don't even breathe. GET CAT FOOD, STAT. This Saturday I jumped up out of bed at 7am ready to write and there they were with eager paws and whiskers twitching. They descended in feline fury upon me and, you guessed it, I ended up going to Wal-Mart before being able to fire up my computer and start writing. Then, I saw I needed toothpaste and Cascade and several other things. I went ahead and started laundry while I was at it. So, I started at 9:30 am after one thing that led to another. That is what happe...