Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

I'm taking notes from Alan November's keynote conversation. He asked 3 questions and facilitated our conversation. This is a live blog post, so please forgive the lack of links and perhaps typos. Alan November 1985 - he was one of the first Krista McCauliff Educator (sp?) . He got call that he was one of first 5 Krista McCauliff educators and he said "I don't want to go into space" and hung up on them. They called back and said they wanted him to go around the country. 3 limitations on programming back then on programming Processing speed Amount of ram Memory in hard drive (fourth now would be bandwidth) They told him they didn't focus on physical limitations - they told him they imagined that their limitations were infinite and then set to work in the "ideal" environment and then when done playing in the ideal environment of infinity then we look back at what we had to do. "if we started with our limits, we would go out of business because we ...

As we discuss on page 54 of Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds, one of the 5 ways students need to connect in the flattened classroom is over time. We have so many opportunities for students to create time capsules to communicate with themselves. Ideas like this plan on Share my Lesson for a time capsule on the first day of school resonate. Students can write letters to themselves in the future using sites like Future.me which will is a reason that begs for students to have a lifelong email. If you use this site, use the Facebook email address for students (if Facebook doesn't change the address again) to let them write to themselves. Other ways to help students connect with themselves in the future is to do like I did as a child. I wrote a list of things I'd really like to do with my life when I was 12 and have now done all of them including publishing a book. ("I want to write things that help people" was the goal.") I also wanted to own my own business a...

On my Facebook page, we've been talking about the stages of grief as our summers come to a close in the northern hemisphere. Words like "death of a dream" and "mourning" have been used. Many of us are excited and "those" dreams have started again for me. I have recurring dreams that happen before school starts, I knew they would start soon and indeed last night they began again. I'm in college and attending a class that I skipped the last time, just to find out we have a major test that I didn't study for. I have the complete and utter feeling that I have monumental task ahead that I am not prepared for. It doesn't matter how much I study or how much I plan or how much I do anything -- I never FEEL ready. Ever. This is year 11 for me of teaching and I don't feel ready even now. It is a great profession where you can completely start over every year. And yet, it is hard because we start over -- I don't want it said of me "She wa...

The wordle made from the tags and bookmarks shared in this post. Wordles are a phenomenal productivity tool and I'm starting to have students put them on the front of longer documents to help me scan and preread. I collect productivity books, tips, and ideas. Going through my bookmarks on Diigo, I realized I had some great stuff in here that I still use and ponder. In this "best of" post, I'm sharing some of the best productivity tips, tricks, and apps for those of you who are trying to get the most out of every moment. BlogSieve.com: Advanced Feed Processing for Atom, RDF and RSS. Create new feeds by filtering, merging and sorting existing feeds. This website lets you mashup and create new feeds from existing ones. Take some time to manipulate feeds into smaller ones and you'll be glad you did. tags: educaiton rss socialmedia productivity app Feed Sifter: Get only...

English: teacher and its importance (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have." : Lee Iacocca See, Iacocca agreed that teaching is noble. Let's look at people who know the importance of what we do and not the sensational media that makes its money by stirring up controversy, sharing gossip, and elevating the basest things as if they are truth so that they get the eyes, clicks, and traffic to pay their salaries with advertising. The media has no incentive to talk about great things because people don't stop and stare in wonder at those things. The problem with our society is that people would rather be shocked than awed. Yet, I will live to be the kind of teacher who encourages a student to st...

English: A panorama of a research room taken at the New York Public Library with a Canon 5D and 24-105mm f/4L IS.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Research news and information I've been reading lately. Professional Development Adds Up for Maine's Math Teachers | Edutopia "Professional development is the essential vitamin for boosting learning with laptops, according to researchers studying Maine's one-to-one program. David Silvernail, director of the Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation, said a two-year randomized control trial of middle school math teachers was "successful on all fronts." Researchers examined the impact of high quality, ongoing professional development that included face-to-face and online workshops, peer coaching and mentoring, and site visits." tags: research 1:1 laptop education Change Magazine - September-October 2010 It i...