Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

In April, I had three ferns. They were scraggly and brown with only a scant 3-4 slightly rancid green fronds sticking up from the middle. They were very sad. I had neglected to water them. So although my May was crazy, I bought one more beautiful, full, lush fern for a special place on my back porch. And then, I resolved to water all of my ferns... just to see what happened. For one month and a half I have watered all four ferns every day. Guess what has happened? Now, I have four, lush, beautiful ferns. Every time someone comes to my house, they compliment me on these beautiful ferns. Three of them have moved from the back porch to the front and now I have bought three more. As I have watched the transformation, I have clearly seen a life principle: What ever you water will grow! You may not think that is an epiphany, but it truly is! You see, life is not in the heroic carrying of an enormous log up a hill. Life is more like carrying a gunny sack of small rocks up a hill each...

I've begun my summer reading , and have completed my first book of the summer. Must Read for Literature and History Teachers How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill is an absolute must read for any teacher of classical literature or history. This is the first of the "Hinges of History" series and is not for the person afraid of a robust vocabulary. My father recommended the series and this is one time I'm glad I didn't go with the Amazon reviews which only gave it three stars. I loved this book! World Knowledge suffers from whiplash I have had several paradigm shifts as I've realized that world knowledge has not been on a steady sloped increase. Every so often society suffers from whiplash as the rapid acceleration of learning is halted by a collision with unlearned or repressive political take overs of those who want to control minds or simply do not value learning. In many cases, hunger and over population are great enemies of knowledge. As we...

Thank you to the many edubloggers for the best year of teaching I've ever had! Now, if you are looking for something to do, the wiki how to has many random things that you can learn how to do. However, if you want to do something meaningful, I suggest you speak out on DOPA , Read a good book , spend time with your family and for goodness sakes, blog about the things you've learned this year so the rest of us can be in the excitement. Remember that we need a vacation just to remember who we are. You simply cannot pour water out of an empty pitcher. When we know who we are and are rested, we are better teachers in the fall. So, fill up that pitcher. Rest without guilt and read with abandon. Blog, comment, and get some sun. Play frisbee and play with new technology. Prop your feet up and have a good laugh. As I've been reading my first book of the summer, Thomas Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization" I am reminded that when the Irish saved civilizati...

School is out and my students have begun blogging. My "blogging" students who have set up independent blogs on blogger and wordpress have plans to blog and share this summer as part of their learning experience. The first post of summer vacation is Book Reviews: Night by one of my now tenth graders. She has four or five blogs and is doing an excellent job. I hope that you'll encourage her. It is wonderful! Tags: student blog blogging book review

My students have produced such excellent work over the past three weeks that I'll be sharing some of their insights well into June. They are such excellent learners and teachers. One of my more recent assignments was to have students compare and contrast wikis and blogs. Synopsis of their posts The most meaningful point that they have brought out for me is that they see wikis as a place to share information and they see blogs as a place to share opinions and discuss. In their words Here are some of the more insightful answers. Wikis and blogs are an essential part of a classroom. They are important because you can communicate with teachers and other students. Wikis are more of a way to share notes and homework with other students, while blogs are more of another way of to express your opinion on topics that they want to talk about. On wikis you can also have different pages on your hobbies, and blogs you can share information by your profile and you can talk about hot topics. ...

For my question of the week, I'm shifting students to think.com . (See my post on how I'm using think this summer .) My question of the week is a debate question: Discussing DOPA During our last few days of school, we are going to discuss legislation that has currently been introduced in congress called the Deleting Online Predators Act. It is your final assignment to look at this act and state your opinion on DOPA. Support your position with at least three facts. Here are some of the more meaningful posts: Madison L I do not support DOPA. Using the internet is a priveledge. The government shouldn't ban certain things like myspace, blogging, and wikispaces. Doing this will hinder America in advancing technologically. The government should worry about teaching people safe ways to use the internet, not blocking certain things. Stupidity is to blame, not predators. banks w I do not support DOPA. Blogging, myspace, and all the new technology's are not the probl...

In part four of Stewart's and my discussion ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) of how we use the wiki at Westwood, we discuss authentic assessment and how it is used on the Westwood wiki. If you want to understand the nuts and bolts of how I use wikis in the classroom, it is worth a read. If you're doing something different, often the questions from a good interviewer like Stewart help you self analyze and come to a better understanding of your own classroom. Tags: Stewart Mader , wiki , education , assessment , teacher , teach , blog , blogs , Vicki A Davis , coolcatteacher

PC World has announced their 101 Fabulous Freebies . (Hat tip to Jeff Utecht ) Some on the list that I'm already using: Google Desktop Wikipedia Firefox Skype Palm Desktop Del.icio.us Flickr Lavasoft ITunes Audacity Google Earth Five on the list that I've got to try: Hyperwords This Firefox browser plug-in renders any text--on any Web page-- clickable . Highlight a word or phrase, and a pop-up menu lets you submit the highlighted text to search engines, reference sites, online merchants, and more. I think this will help me find resources as I read blogs and am researching. WriteBoard For collaborative editing , you can't beat WriteBoard. It lets you create, edit, and share documents with others--directly in your browser. You can even compare versions to see changes. I'd like to see how this compares to writely and how I can potentially use it in my class. FreeMind Psychologists say that an effective way to take notes is to put them in a Mind Map --a free-form ...

Great podcast about think.com from a four year veteran One of my favorite edubloggers dynamos, Wesley Fryer , commented on my post yesterday about how our school using Think.com for my summer assignments and pointed out his incredible podcast entitled Think.com and Digital Social Networking where he interviewed Cheryl Oakes’, an elementary technology facilitator who has used Think.com in Wells Elementary School in Wells, Maine. Last summer she kept think.com up and saw students using it over the summer. He has some great show notes which includes Screenshots of the Think.com environment . Telling the story This is definitely one of those stories that we need to tell about the positive impact of social networking in schools. Cheryl talks about how the emerging "digital natives" that she is seeing in elementary school has caused the use of tools like think.com to "mushroom" over the past few years. Observations from Wesley's and Cheryl's podcast Here a...

I thought some of the readers and collaborators out there might be eligible for this incredible award from the Mellon Foundation for non-profit open source software that benefits their constituency. The Mellon Foundation is an amazing organization that does so many things to help others. Tags: foundation grant education open source software non profit Mellon Foundation teaching teacher

As part of our Computer Science portfolio , my students had to analyze a Web 2.0 app . There are several exciting new (free) services out there that can really help students. Studybuddy.info The first one I want to bring to your attention is studybuddy.info . If you have a student who is struggling with SAT words, this is where to send them. One of my students reviewed this in her portfolio and she simply did an incredible job. She did a great job reviewing the site, so I suggest you read her whole review. In her review, Kyli writes : Goodbye paper notecards! Studybuddy offers an easy and effective way to study without the use of paper notecards. It also offers a way to test yourself using "notecards." To begin you have stacks , which are stacks of virtual notecards. You can create as many stacks as you need. To add notecards to the stack you click on the stack name , and then click on new card. When you click to create a note card, you then go to the card editor . The ca...

I think I've found a new love! While looking for something to use over the summer for blogging (that requires less maintenance on my part than class blogmeister ), one of the classblogmeister forum participants recommended think.com . Think.com is a free service for schools sponsored by Oracle . It has a whole range of interactive tools that are so very easy for students (and me) to use! Strict Authentication gives protection to students This is the part I like best, Oracle has a rigorous authentication process and a contract that the principal or lead administrator must sign about the school's use of their think.com account. I've been working on this for around four weeks now (it could take less time, but it is crazy right now.) The contract is extensive and requires a lead administrator's signature to execute. After spending a day setting it up and training students, it is worth every second! Safety In a world gone crazy over profiles and social software, this is...

I will be fascinated to see the results of this nationwide study of the effect of ePortfolios on student learning, achievement, and engagement. The study monitors about 5,000 high school students coast to coast and is sponsored by TaskStream , a New York-based software company that makes e-portfolios that students use for free. The article makes it sound like the eportfolios are free, however, if you go to the website, there are subscription rates. I do hope that the students are able to preserve copies of their ePortfolios. Imagine how demotivating it would be to create the portfolio and "lose" it somewhere along the way. (See my take on 100% digital portfolios .) We need more research along these lines. I hope that neutral researchers at universities around the world are also looking at these topics so we do not end up with a lot of "hype." We need best practices (not just best software) amidst the maelstrom of Web 2.0 educational apps. Tags: Taskstream , educ...

Do something to make a difference, participate in the DOPA Wiki created by Will Richardson . (If this is the first you've heard of it, you may want some background on my DOPA: From book burning to blog burning? blog entry.) This afternoon, I spent around on hour on the page that I think is going to be most useful, the " Top 20 reasons not to support DOPA ." Already on the list: 20. This bill will increase the technology gap. Blogging and the effective use Internet information is a vital skill for children to master. Only having access at home to these technologies will target our most at-risk populations by disallowing them to have access at all, since most disadvantaged kids use public libraries and schools for access to the very tools that will allow them to be competitive in the 21st century market place. Through this piece of legislation we will only further the chasm between the haves and have nots. 19. This bill will prevent the effective teaching of the Inter...

Myst improves descriptive writing in boys? I've been reading with my mouth agape about how Tim Rylands uses the Myst computer games in literacy classes to rev up the descriptive writing skills of his students , particularly boys. In a newspaper article about Tim , they describe the learning process using Exile, part of the Myst computer game, as follows: In the lesson, on the whiteboard, we started in a rocky terrain. You could see that it had been inhabited. Stone steps flanked by gnarled wooden railings led upwards to an ornate door. " Should we open it?" asked Tim. "Yes," chorused the Year 6 children. The door slid back and, inside, the cave-like room was bathed with gold. That light flooded the classroom too and illuminated the children's faces as they sat enraptured by the images. "Write down what you feel at this moment." They scribbled away. And so it went on as we traveled down corridors and eventually emerged on a cliff ove...

Stewart Mader has posted part 3 of our interview concerning the structure and activities on the wiki. Eighth grade begins to wiki! I talk about how we use the wiki in computer science and computer fundamentals. I've also introduced the eighth grade to wikis this week. This is how I did it: 1) I added them to the wikispace and helped them join. 2) I created an 8th grade wiki work page and linked to their names. 3) I allowed them to edit and create their wiki and then go in and edit each others. As things "happened" (simultaneous editing, for example), I showed them why that happened and how to look in the history. I showed them how to revert to previous wikis and how to compare versions. I also showed them the importance of putting comments on their editing. Our summary activity for keyboarding As a summary activity, I also have them take the 8 concepts of effective keyboarding and they are making up a story reinforcing those concepts. To do this, I broke the class ...

Should the DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) ( click here for PDF ) pass, all access in public schools to ’social networking’ sites on the Internet would be banned. Newsweek says: The campaign to crowd out predators from MySpace.com is gathering steam in Washington. House of Representatives lawmakers proposed a bill on May 9 that would block access to social networks and Internet chat rooms in most federally funded schools and libraries. I'm taken back to the early 1990's when I offered adult training classes on the Internet. A well meaning "little old lady" in town gave me her thoughts on my class: "How can you call yourself a Christian and teach about the Internet? It is just terrible!" My answer to her was, "Mam, how can you call yourself a Christian and go to Atlanta, there are prostitutes in Atlanta and people get killed there too?" I proceeded to explain to her that there is not a difference between the two. Both are places. A place a...