Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

"There is no point in cutting off a person's nose and then giving them a rose to smell." Indian proverb As we consider change and helping others change, it is important to remember that WHAT we say is important but often HOW we say it is more important. I saw that this week as I felt myself getting upset while discussing what types of things the teachers at our school need to learn at an upcoming class. I've lived and breathed and researched and studied for this moment and when asked, quickly typed up a two page list of simple ways for teachers to integrate technology into their classroom, while understanding that they are often beginners and only have one or two computers in their rooms. My time had come! Oh no, it didn't! It didn't matter. It didn't matter that "I'm the cool cat teacher" (ha ha) or that "I cohost Wow2" or the countless hours spent researching and studying how to effectively implement technology in the classroom...

Doug Johnson's recent post is too important to pass up. Countless times, people have told me that itunes, youtube, google video are being blocked solely for bandwidth reasons. Not any more. According to Doug Johnson, packet shaping has become quite robust! (In fact, I want to get one and am calling my vendor next week.) Here is what Doug says: "We installed a packet shaper on our network last year. What our packet shaper ( or traffic shaper or layer seven switch ) allows us to do is prioritize traffic on our network." But it was a recent release to the software that made the greatest difference: But the degree to which we can specify what traffic has priority became more granular with a recent software release. We can now give YouTube (not all Flash) a "Priority 0" rating. The yearbook people can use Flash to do their pages unimpeded; middle school kids can look for videos of fart lighting on YouTube with what bandwidth is left over. (Click on the small imag...

Steve Hargadon pointed out that the recent Classroom 2.0 conference in San Francisco had several micropresentations. Here is what he says : "There were three very late "idea" additions to the program that ended up working very well. The first was the idea of holding 5-minute "lightning" round presentations , given by participants to showcase a tool they use or an idea for teaching, or by vendors to showcase their products. The idea for these came from the TeachMeet unconferences held in the UK that have seven-minute "micropresentations" and two-minute "nano-presentations." I'm not even sure if we followed their format very closely, but it was just the idea of short presentations that appealed to me: they don't require so much preparation as to put people off, they allow for bite-sized good ideas to be presented, and they aren't so long as to feel badly if you watch one that doesn't 't grab you. I think the particip...

I thought I was out but teachandlearn twittered about Songbird ! This is the most AMAZING audio (and video) browser! This is amazing! I love it! I often don't want to struggle w/ starting itunes, etc. and this is just great (if it is stable -- see my notes below.) This tutorial tells you how to use it. After you watch the screencast , download songbird , go to www.edtechtalk.com and look at it. It is open source software (which also means it is free!) OK, one warning -- it only looks like it is developer release (which I'm using.) So, in other words, there might be bugs. But I love the idea. Itunes is good, however, you're so limited to the itunes store. This is a great concept! In other words, you need to be a bit comfortable with your computer, if you're a beginner, you may want to wait a little bit. Who else knows something about songbird? tag: songbird , media , audio , video , technology , tools

I came across this really cool presentation that is also pretty funny. (hat tip StumbleVideo . (Don't be scared but it is about greasemonkey and firebug -- cool tools.) It is only 3 minutes long and yet I learned SO MUCH! Please watch it. Here are my questions: Fix it, Don't Trash IT- Why don't we use scripts to "fix" the sites for education instead of blocking them? (Although now it is tough and perhaps onesie-twosie, certainly we could use some sort of script to help us with this. It just shows me it is possible so I'm thinking about it.) Micropresentations Why don't education conferences include sessions where people just get 3 minutes and 20 slides like this -- and the slides autoadvance. I wonder how much we could smash into one presentation? How much could we cover. (And could we stand the energy?) I think the presentation is great because it just conveys so much, it is humorous, and it is jam packed with information. What a great teacher! ...

I am floored and amazed by this amazing article about Twitter in Academics . (which I picked up from Twitter, of course.) The uses outlined by this visionary prof include (I include summaries and quotes from the prof): Class Chatter : Connecting the class with one another and the real world. Classroom Community : Adding the sixth sense to the classroom. " This carried with it a range of benefits, from more productive classroom conversations (people were more willing to talk, and more respectful of others), and also helped me to understand what type of students they were...I can definitely say that changed the classroom dynamics for the better. I think this is connected to what Clive Thompson calls the sixth sense of Twitter. Having the Sixth Sense can really help the classroom." Get a Sense of the World : By looking at the public timeline, students taking a look at the "noise" in the world." (I wouldn't do this with middle school and below and perhaps hi...

This slideshow is a must watch for anyone blogging. I think it makes some good points. I totally agree with three points: No one wants to read a broken record. (vary your content) No one wants to write a broken record .(vary your content) Sometimes your blog posts should be easy to write. I do want to add that commenting is a very important part of blogging as well. If you join in the conversation and be a part, people are more likely to come see what you have to say. (Goodness knows, there are enough know it alls in the world!) | View | Upload your own tag: blogging , blog , education , writing