Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Scott over at Dangerously Irrelevant has a great post about DOPA in which he integrates a lot of the research from a recent report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Some interesting points including: only one fifth of solitications occur on a non-home computer , less children are being solicited online now than five years a go, and students are better handling those solitications. Scott then makes a great point: I highly recommend you check out some of the high-quality work being done by the CCRC , CSRIU , and others. If we're going to hype ourselves up about these issues, we should at least have a solid factual base to undergird our conversations. Great article, Scott! So, it sounds like the best medium to reduce victimization, education, is going to be limited in public schools. Education wouldn't affect just 1/5th of the problem, but 5/5ths of the problem (100%). Teaching children lifetime safety and privacy skills is a priority for me in my ...

As we grapple with budgeting, we've been looking at the explosive growth of our computers on campus and discussing what will have to happen for future tech support. Ever feel like your job is too much! Right now, I am a full time teacher and maintain a server with over 100 computers. I keep a backlog of several weeks or more and probably work about 60+ hours a week. Needless to say, this cannot continue for a multitude of reasons (including that of wanting to pursue more writing.) I struggle like anyone in a difficult situation to keep my positive attitude about the never ending list of "computer-do's" for those at the school. It often gets in the way of my first love... teaching! So, how many users per tech support person? I've found a great article at ZDNET about the ideal Users-to-tech support ratio . They advise before determining your ideal ratio that you must consider three things: Complexity - How many platforms, what type of configuration, computer a...

The curriculum director and I just completed a nomination of our technology program for the 2006 The Journal Innovators . It's a long shot, but since I had to create it anyway, I thought some of you might want a good synopsis of exactly what we're doing with wikis here at Westwood. (This is a little less modest than I usually am, but it is nomination for an award.) What is the Westwood Web 2.0 Wiki-Centric Classroom? The award winning Westwood School Wiki is the core of Westwood Schools technology program. This wiki coordinates the blogs , podcasts , movies , and other online materials created by students and teacher Vicki Davis . Students post lesson summaries , explore new technologies like mashups and Web 2.0 , invent , share , and inspire . This year, the computer science class is writing a wikibook to share with the Westwood community. Instead of banning technology in the classroom, this technology program uses cellphones to shoot video, ipods to do...

New Technologies are a Cherry on the Cake? Ewan MacIntosh makes an amazing statement: The arguments that new technologies are just a fad, a cherry on the cake, an added extra, a bolt-on, a treat, something we can pass by, nothing that a good PowerPoint can't supersede, nothing that a textbook hasn't achieved until now, nothing that our best exam factory schools can't do without... all of this is just keich . The teachers touting this must wake up to the fact that they are not engaging their kids unless they do use these technologies, the ones the kids use. Moreover, they're not really preparing them how to cope with the information being passed over to them unless they teach how to manipulate and analyze that information with these tools. So, then, I consider this in light of the discussions going on in Internet-connected classrooms around the World about Pluto no longer being considered a planet . How long will it take for the Pluto decision to filter to the average...

I've just got to share with you the great job Jeanne Simpson did with her Blogging guidelines for students. It is definitely worth using with your classes that blog. It is really in a form that you can copy and paste to Word. I'm going to use it with my eighth graders when they start blogging (the others have been trained already.) Tags: blogging , edublogging , coolcatteacher

This is often how I feel. Like my Dad's dog, "Doc," among the geraniums. I am in classes and my students amaze me. They are like beautiful flowers, and I feel sometimes, well, like visitor among the flowers. Here are two of the most amazing discussions I've had this week. 1) A total refutation of the classification of "PC" and "Mac" Our computer science textbook was published in August and actually has a 2007 copyright (how do they do that?) It is a College Level Thompson publishing book and incredible in every way, but it is amazing how quickly a textbook can be outdated. We were discussing the textbook's assertion that there are basically two genres of computer: PC and Mac. PC is defined as the IBM-descended Windows Operating System computers and Mac's being the Apple brand of products. This has been easy to do in the past because there has traditionally been little cross platform compatibility. Our floppy disks and comp...

Last night I had a delightful discussion with Steve Hargadon, from K-12 Opensource and EdTechLive , and Adam Frey, co-founder of Wikispaces . Steve does an excellent job of preparing for his podcasts. He does a lot of research and sketches out planned questions for the interview. Adam sounds like he's been in the media a lot and handles his questions well. It was a joy to get to speak about a technology that I love SO much! This was a good discussion and if you're considering working with wikis, you should take a listen . It is around an hour, so you may just want to turn on the podcast and grade papers while you listen. (That's the only way I can find time to listen since I only have a 5 minute commute.) What a way to learn how to use Skype! It was a good thing too, because the phone connection was worse than the skypecast over the Internet. That is hard to fathom! I'm taking a break tonight! I also want to say thank you to all of you out there who have been en...

I just got off a great call with Steve Hardagon, of EdTechLive , and Adam Frey, of Wikispaces . We discussed wikis in education and it was a great call, even though I got in trouble for forgetting to mute my mike! ( Adam was just saying such exciting things I was scribbling away with my unsharpened pencil and making a racket, I'm sure! I guess Steve will have a little extra editing to do!) During the last two nights, I've been talking about several things. Here is some information that I want to share with you. How I use wikis in the classroom I have two primary uses: classroom organization and classroom content. Classroom organization The wiki is my hub. I guess you could say, I have a wiki-centric classroom. Whether it is blogs, podcasts, wikis, or vodcasts, if it is created in my classroom it is linked on the wiki. If the student creates it, they are to link it. It gives us one place to organize and post and one place to send content to me. Classroom content I'...

As a wonderful side effect of participating in Miguel Guhlin's skypecast last night, I learned about these wonderful Internet safety videos . Tracking Teresa was the one that was recommended, specifically. I am going to preview it today and use it next week as part of my online safety and privacy teaching. Tags: online safety , myspace

Now that I've written about the importance of commenting , I want to swing to the other direction and talk about who NOT to listen to. I want to share with you what I think about reaching your dreams and the importance of filtering the "comments" and advice you hear so you can be your best. Zig Ziglar's old classic, See You at the Top has a great story about Zig visiting his grandmother. He says that his grandmother baked beautiful, delicious fluffy biscuits. We'll one day young Zig went over there and the biscuits were hard, short and squat. His grandmother took one look and said something that Zig never forgot, "Well, look there. Those biscuits forgot to rise and got baked in a squat!" That is what happens to so many of us! We forget to rise to our full potential and somewhere along the line we get baked in a squat, unable to rise any further. You see, Granny Ziglar had left out the baking powder, an essential ingredient for the biscuits to rea...

This has been a very busy week (and its only Monday.) My tenth grade Computer Science class has made an amazing start on their wiki book with Chapter 1 on Online Safety and Privacy : Here is the chapter outline: Avoiding viruses Preventing intrusions Blocking spyware and pop up ads Protecting e-commerce transactions Be safe from e-mail scams Effective Online Privacy If you want to know how to keep your computer safe and yourself, you should take time to read what my amazing students have done. If you think your privacy is safe, you should look at some of the websites on their effective online privacy wiki . After six months, they have really begun to understand how to make beautiful and attractive wikis. They are using screenshots and making many of their own graphics. These wikis were based upon their team class presentations on each of these topics. At the conclusion of the project, they were required to create a team wiki. Each person in the 2 person group was required to post....

Computer Science this year is going to be phenomenal I have a great class, great computers, a great new textbook, and some really neat things that I planned over the summer. But, I need your help! We are getting ready to discuss computer categories . I agree with the textbook on every aspect EXCEPT on the category "Gaming Consoles." I and others have been talking about the convergence of computing and entertainment for some time and that is certainly here right now. Tivo, Media Stations, upgraded cable boxes, and hybrid gaming stations are proof of that. Notice that televisions are now called "monitors." Gaming consoles is a subcategory of a larger one, but what? Here are the classifications of computing devices from my college-level computer science textbooks. (They mention them, the graphic is mine that I created for teaching purposes.) The items in red were added by me. The Convergence of Home and Computing I have questions about these categories spurre...

My Computer Fundamentals has taken a dramatic shift this year. In years past, I've basically taught MO "Microsoft Office!" Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, as well as a smattering of other tools including Adobe PhotoShop. However, last spring, I asked my readers the question Open Office or Microsoft Office: Which should I use? As I read the comments and pondered, I was stunned to realize that open source and web apps have created a whole new generation in software. To limit my student's understanding to only Microsoft products is a disservice and yet, Microsoft is still important. Perhaps the Process is more important than the Product So, I have spent the summer seeking curricula that will help me teach students HOW to learn software. I have often felt that it is the process of learning the new software and not the software itself that is the vital component of what I teach. As I've looked, I've really not found any methodology to help me teach student...

Routines can allow life (and your classroom) to be a little bit predictable. I have always hated and fought routine although I am finding that their presence in my classroom frees me to be more creative and effective as a teacher. The fish in the picture to the left were some we saw in a glass bottom boat tour on our cruise this summer. Each day at the same time and in the same manner, this glass bottom boat crew goes to feed the fish oatmeal. The fish know what to expect. They flock and feed because they know there will be food (and safety) from those on the boat. It is an ideal (albeit artificial) situation for their feeding. There is a comfort in routine for students . How will I know what is for homework? How do I know what to do upon entering the room? What do I do upon leaving the classroom? How do I get papers back? This year I've really focused on honing my procedures for entering, leaving, and running my classroom. Thus far, two days into school, I am extremely ple...

This is familiar. When a blogger's site goes quiet, they are either gone on vacation or they are so busy they cannot breathe. This week, I've been the latter. I've kept a pen and paper handy as I noted things I'd like to share with you. In addition to installing my amazing new computer lab, we've also been training administration and staff on our new PowerSchool system. Moving from manual systems to PowerSchool has gone relatively smoothly largely because of the amazing leadership from administration. They told the teachers, "Listen, I'm not very good with a computer and I'm learning. It's the right thing to do and certainly you're as good as all of those other teachers who are doing it now." No bellyaching, just professionals who know they need to do it! Boy, I work in a great school! Then our administration did something really revolutionary! They attended one whole day of training and learned how to use it themselves! The trainer ...

Commenting has truly been the fuel that has fired readership for my blog and opportunity for me. It is also part of being a responsible blogger in general. If one is an expert, I guess they may just want to keep their "wisdom" on their own blog, but the true conversation participants are th ose who contribute to the discussion wherever the blog posting is. There are several techniques for effective commenting that I try to follow. 1) Write a meaningful comment. "Yeah" or "Right on" may make the author feel good, but of more interest to conversation participants is "Why do you think it is right on?" If you don't care, don't comment, but if something truly resonates with you and you have something to share, do it! You show the blog author that "you hear them" Sometimes authors (like me) feel like they are only posting to themselves. You can actually influence those you admire with a meaningful comment, blog writers change the...