Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Don't measure your worth by how often you're thanked. But just so you know - THANK YOU. Your job is important. You are important. Your sacrifice is worth it. THANK YOU. You are noble. Never let the lack of thanks cause you to forget your nobility. Live it. Be it. Be the kind of teacher this world desperately needs. And for every one of you who are THAT kind of teacher - the world owes you gratitude for which it will never give. But let us teachers give it to one another, for truly, we are among the few who really know what it means to give up your life in pursuit of helping a child find theirs.   Written by Vicki Davis, author - Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds - Posted with Blogsy from my iPad

Welcome to Educators App - Turn Your Classroom Website Into An App! | Educators App - Turn Your Classroom Website Into An App! This cool website will use your website and turn it into an app on Apple and Android. This is cool and may be a nice answer for teachers who have a website but don't have a full LMS with an app. tags: news education app teaching Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

blink(1), the USB RGB LED by ThingM — Kickstarter Cool little light that can show various colors to indicate things that have happened. This was funded on kickstarter and I noticed it being added to ifttt.com as a channel. So, for example, if you have a big download and want to be notified when it is done - or if you want to be notified when a certain person (Grandma) logs into skype but you don't want to have to log in or look at the screen - this USB RGB light will light in the color you wish. There are so many cool applications for this as we move into the "internet of things." tags: education productivity news internet_of_things 500px / Upgrade A popular website for uploading your best photos and selling them is 500px. You can upload 20 pictures for free a week and have...

edtrips | Beyond the classroom I'm going to test this website. It manages class trips, permission forms, and communicates activities with the class. The idea of it sounds great. Yes, it is free. Of course, we'll have to dig down and see how the emails are used and the privacy settings but this is definitely something very needed! tags: education news field trip tumblr app eduapp The App | Outlines Outloud This app converts study notes to speech. This might be an app that some of you are interested in trying out for your special needs students. "OutlinesOutloud takes the sting out of studying by converting your study outlines to spoken audio. Super-flexible playback controls let you vary speech rate; jump forward and backward with ease, ski...

The view from my favorite chair in the den this morning as I listen for purpose in the silence. Great strength can be found in the quiet moments before the day starts. The time where no cat mews and the night's dew rests quietly upon the ground. Before the tyranny of the noise and the barrage of notifications and matters of nonimportance glare at you with self important demands. Hearing your purpose in the silence... Yet, through the quiet, I can hear the whisper of the true priorities of this day speak to my heart and mind and settle my spirit. To demand that those among us who don't get the mornings and don't like them become morning people is silly. But I would be remiss if I didn't at least point out that much time and peace awaits you if you'll set that alarm earlier and get up before anyone else stirs. The younger your children are, the more you need this time alone. The more you work with kids, the more you need this time alone. For, to me, truly, t...

Friday we took a tour of the Georgia Tech campus as my daughter went for a college day. While my son is already a freshman there, this is my daughter's time and her decision. As we went through the library I was struck by the difference from twenty years a go. This area of the library used to be tables where we had group study sessions. A study group of 4 of us met three days a week at 7pm here as we worked through freshman calculus together. Now it is all computers. Many of them - as you can see, have double monitors. There's a place on the back wall that shows where open computers are, but there are likely a hundred or so in this brightly lit atrium area. Interestingly, every incoming student is required to have a computer, but this is a place to go to work for serious business. We still need desktop computers There is still a place in our academic world for desktop computers- even when we have laptops. A place to sit still with our work. While Iike to draft with ...

The strange world in which we live is that a masters student will likely get his thesis read because it is attached to a really incredibly geekily awesome video which is a physics parody of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody .  It is worth a watch even if string theory is something you do when you try to estimate how far to stand away from the your friend when you try to shoot the string cheese at his mouth. I've got to know how he did this! Related articles This physics grad student made a mind-blowing Bohemian Rhapsody cover Mamma mia! 'Bohemian Gravity' turns string theory into a viral video Bohemian Gravity, An A Capella Science Parody of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Bohemian Gravity: String Theory Explored With A Cappella Version of Bohemian Rhapsody

Student blogging contest by Questia – Enter for a chance to win $250 and be published! | Citations If you have some blogging students, here's a contest they may want to enter. The contest ends Friday. The students can end prizes and be published on their blog. Pass this along to your students. tags: news blogging education contest Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

SortMyBox — Organize your Dropbox If you use Dropbox for automating your assessment and grading there are so many wonderful tings you can do with Sortmy box. For example, if you have a "turnin" folder that all students can access, you could sweep the files out of there and put it in a private folder for grading. Or, you could move all picture folders to a certain place. This is a very cool app for organizing dropbox, expecially if you want to consolidate pictures or videos. tags: education news productivity dropbox cloud bestpractices techintegrator DropVox - Record Voice Memos to Dropbox for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store If you want to record voice memos to Dropbox, Dropvox will do that for you. ...

ECRP. Vol 4 No 1. Moving up the Grades: Relationship between Preschool Model and Later School Success Interesting study of children, preschool and later school success. "Children's later school success appears to have been enhanced by more active, child-initiated early learning experiences. Their progress may have been slowed by overly academic preschool experiences that introduced formalized learning experiences too early for most children's developmental status." tags: education research news This trend is especially prevalent in programs that serve low-income children. Compensatory early childhood programs such as Head Start and state-sponsored pre-kindergarten for low-income families and preschoolers with special needs are designed to help children acquire skills needed f...

Educational Leadership:Giving Students Meaningful Work:Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning Excellent article from ASCD about meaningful work and students. I particularly appreciate the section on having a driving question. "A project without a driving question is like an essay without a thesis." Absolutely. Does your project or activity have a driving question? Great article worth a read. tags: education news pbl Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Dominant logic often isolates higher learning research from the teachers who need to apply it. There are pay walls that keep average everyday teachers like me from nosing around in matters reserved for ivory towers. It sort of ticks me off sometimes. Why can't ivory tower people "adopt" classroom practitioners (like me and many others) who really "get into" reading research and applying it in our classroom so we can actually access the material we need to read? You would think that people would want "real" teachers to read the research on learning and teaching. Instead we often get insulted for not knowing it or using it when we don't have access in the first place. No entry allowed Today I was perusing around research around what makes learning meaningful to students and came across this article " Phases of Meaningful Learning " but have to be a "member" or pay a one time $25 to access the article. Well it may just b...

They've already decided. The decision is made. If someone is in danger, they'll be there. They'll put out the fire. Whether it is the kind of fire that crackles in flame or in the heated sparks of human emotion, it is their job. 9/11 or not, they're always where things run hot. Once a week in the fall when my son steps out on the football field, I worry if he'll be OK as he plays the game. An Every Day Worry Every day of every year of every season, the loved ones of firefighters and first responders wonder if they'll come home that night. Does anyone understand? Do any of us really understand what it would be like to live life like that? Do we have a clue? Even more, do we even say thank you? Not the generic 'thank you for all you do" but the more powerful: Thank you for your service. Thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for responding even when it is scary or hard or upsetting. There are public servants everywhere bu...

Wolfram Technology for STEM Education: Virtual Conference for Education 2013 This September 17, Wolfram Alpha has a Virtual Learning Education Conference. I suggest that math teachers everywhere should take advantage of this free conference. They have 2 tracks - one where you learn how to use their technologies in the classroom and the other is emerging methods of using it in STEM education. All of this is online and free. tags: education math news wolfram alpha teachers Sparkup – The Magical Book Reader What a cute idea. Is Grandma or Uncle far away? You can record reading them a book and they can hear your voice as they read the book. This is very cool. What a treasure. tags: education news ap...

I sit here at 7:11 watching Shadow and Krispy, the cats, eye each other in a circle wondering who will attack first. Oops. There they go. Krispy delivers a paw to the chest and Shadow lands a clean blow on the head. Now they are taking a moment to lick and they'll be back at it before the clock clicks another minute. I wonder why they fight. Shadow was saved from the jaws of four of the dogs at the farm almost a year a go. I'm not sure why people put unloved, unwanted pets out at Aunt Nan's house because she has some pretty scary looking dogs out there. Shadow just looks innocent laying here in my arms one night. He's always ready to start a fight. ;-) We couldn't resist. Shadow was a baby kitten and had no where to go and we know that Boots and Krispy are getting on up there in age. We bought them home on Easter weekend when my son who is at college was 8 or 9. So, although they look great, I guess these cats are getting on up there. Maybe even as old as me...

Start a New Habit with Chains.cc Building habits takes time. There are apps like "Don't break the chain" and "lift" but this new one mentioned by ProfHacker called "chains" is worth a look just because it is so visual - you could use this to build habits in your classroom as well. tags: news habits productivity Common Core Math: Best Resources for High School Educators Common Core high school math resources from Edutopia. tags: common core math news education Try Azendoo to Organize Group Projects Richard Byrne recommends using Azendoo to organize group projects. While I use Trello, I do recommend finding s...

Free Technology for Teachers: A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Backchannels & Informal Assessment Tools An ebook about classroom backchannels from Richard Byrne. tags: education news backchannel How to Make a Class Backchannel | Democratizing Knowledge Mike Gwaltney shares how he uses Twitter to make a backchannel. tags: education news backchannel bestpractices Back-Channeling with Socrative | Socrative Garden Socrative has class backchannel capabilities. tags: backchannel education news MAKE | How ...

There are going to be some exciting discussions about teaching and education that you won't want to miss in Atlanta this Friday.  Here's information on the taping of the 4 episodes this Friday at the NPR studios in Atlanta. If you're interested, please respond soon as space is limited. I'll be there! Join us! SEPTEMBER 6  – THE IGNITE SHOW LIVE AUDIENCE INVITATION Please join us  as we raise awareness and respect for education with  The Ignite Show  – and help us create the live audience we need  for high energy when we are in studio!! RSVP to:  mail@theigniteshow.com 8:15-9:10  – One full show with Special guests: - Heather McGovern / Kentucky Educator - Sharon Whitworth and Cheri Dimar  /Project Team Leads for Jefferson County The Kentucky PTA Story – The First State to Implement Common Core State Standards shares their story 9:15-10:10  – Four  Tech Times with Cool Cat Teacher  (Vicki Davis) ( http:...