Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Hats off to Brian Crosby . Watch this 5 minute movie entitled Inclusion . How can this sort of power be denied? I am firmly convinced that because this school allowed a classmate with leukemia to attend via Skype that the lives of both the class and the student are enriched. This is proof that it is not the tools that are inherently good or evil but rather the use of the tools. A hammer can kill someone but it can also build a house. A nail can be driven through a hand but it can also hold the roof over your head. A fist can hit but a fist can also be clasped in your hand in love. We do not outlaw hammers, nails, or fists -- we teach people to use them properly. So should we do with blogs, wikis, podcasts, skype, and any other tool that becomes available for use in the human experience! (Hat tip to tonights WOW2 show and our incredible guest Wesley Fryer for letting us know about Brian's work. He was on at the very end of the incredible show (along with Miguel Guhlin ) where W...

Come on over to edtechtalk.com if you are online and listen to our live interview with Wes. We start in 4 minutes! If you miss it, come back and listen to the recording. It is going to be great!

After reading the Teacher's at Risk blog post from a few minutes a go, I don't know what makes me angrier at this scenario. This teacher quotes an article from the Mississauga News : "A grade six student at St. Sebastian Elementary School has been censored by his principal after writing a speech about being bored in class…”My message is to you,” he (the student) writes in his speech, “let nobody steal your joy by keeping you bored. Find a way out. To be happy is your purpose in life.” Oh, my goodness. #1 The student was asked to write a speech. The student wrote a speech. The student did that and a quite moving one at that! Now, I disagree that one's purpose in life is to just "be happy," however, if the classroom is devoid of happiness and the excitement of learning, something is fundamentally wrong! #2 Students have a right to their opinion. If I'm bored, I'm bored. I have a student that stays bored in one of my classes much of the time because...

Tomorrow I am spending time with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach 's class EDUC 330 Tech Enhanced Learning at the College of William and Mary. I am incredibly impressed with Sheryl's course syllabus and wish that the incredible speakers she has scheduled could present to many colleges at once. She has an incredible line up and I'm going to be listening to her other speakers. I spent today listening to Anne Davis talk about blogging. Wow! I highly suggest that those of you interested in using blogging in the classroom listen to how Anne has been doing it for years with fifth graders. (The recording is in Elluminate.) Anne teaches teachers at Georgia State University and also finds time to spend 2 hours each week in an elementary classroom. She is incredible! The other speakers? Listen to this: April Chamberlain Chris Craft Vicki Davis Karen Richardson Vinnie Vrotny Mark Wagner Jeff Utech Leigh Blackall Aimee Smith Anne Davis Karen Janowski My Presentation about W...

Tomorrow night on the WOW2 show, my friend and global collaboration expert Sharon Peters will be moderating and interviewing Julie Lindsay, from Bangladesh and I about the Flat Classroom Project. We are quite excited that Thomas Friedman asked for several hundred words about this project to be potentially included in version 3 of his book. This was an honor to be asked by someone we both respect so much. We submitted it to him this week, perhaps it will work out! After reviewing the new NETS standards proposed by ISTE , Julie and I have concluded that this project meets each standard. Honestly, it was quite striking when we realized this, because the project literally evolved under our fingertips. Each of us pushed the other to do better and include more and we know that there are several areas we will improve upon next time. I hope you'll join us over at edtechtalk.com, Tuesday night at 9 pm EST. Join in the chat room and listen on Channel 1. It will be a great talk. (Julie...

A simulpost with the TechLearning Blog The CEO sits down at his desk, slides a few reports into his top desk drawer and straightens pictures on the wall behind his head. Today, he's volunteering at a middle school and he never has to leave his desk. Businesses bemoan the state of education and rightly so: they need a well-educated, capable, responsible work force able to solve problems and connect with the right people within their company to get things done. Well, now, virtual tools are getting rid of their excuses for not volunteering. With free Skype, a webcam, and a headset, everyone from the CEO to the intern could potentially volunteer at almost any school around the world with a common language. Advertisers flock to youtube to encourage average, everyday folks to make what Time Magazine is calling " youmercials." Well, I've seen the beginnings of "YouTeach" last week as my class interviewed nanotechnology expert, Earl Boysen. Boysen is th...

Following are the comments with some documentation as to the non-authenticity of this site. Thank you, friends for clarifying. I'm sure I'll get some "she's so stupid" posts but I'll leave this up to show how the best of us can be taken. I literally researched this for an hour and looked at many blogs and other sources to find the veracity of this. Needless to say, I didn't spend enough time on the site to find what the commenters here are saying. It bothers me greatly that such spoofs even exist and are allowed to continue. I see now that Google Adsense is on the site. And I would say this -- shame on Google Adsense for paying a site money on a false identity that obviously is out to scam people. The fact that they would pay will make people have more and more clever sites which means this will only get worse. I will have to determine how to verify such sites in a better way, but how. Is there a site that mentions website spoofs? Couldn't Go...

I was excited last week to connect with Nanotechnology expert, Earl Boysen. Using the miracle of video skype, we saw each other and had a conversation about nanotechnology. We completed a chapter on Computer Hardware and if one looks at the specific definition of a computer, nanotechnology and quantum computing should be at least understood. I want my students to understand the ethics that arise from being surrounded by devices that are microscopic. If you bought something with nanotechnology in it -- how could you verify it? If you buy a computer now -- you can see it, pick up the box, and take it home. Nanotechnology will be used in the fabrics we buy, and indeed is in the sunscreen that we use today. (I didn't know that.) Following is the audio file of our class interview with Earl Boysen, author of Nanotechnology for Dummies and www.understandingnano.com - he is also a columnist for Nanotechnology. We had a great conversation where students were allowed to ask questions...

I have a channel on youtube. ( http://www.youtube.com/coolcatteacher ) If you have a username on youtube, you may navigate to my channel and hit subscribe. That way all of my videos will go straight to you. I also have a coolcatteacher group and am going to join the K12 group . Groups let multiple people add. The coolcat teacher group is for those of you who have videos that you want me to review or about the things I've worked with. Julie and I are compiling two final summative videos: one on the objectives accomplished (mine is shown below) and another as a how to. I have taken the ISTE standards and aligned them with what we accomplished on the flat classroom project. I also discussed how we will change the project in the future (we hope) and what types of classrooms this is best suited for. Unfortunately I had to upload this to Google Video because it is longer than 10 minutes (14 to be exact.) ( See Video ) In the future, I am going to start working to stay under the 10 ...

I am in overload -- I listened to Stephen Downes today. He used analogies to teach, making me think that networks are modeled in everything from river tributaries to the human mind to the networks built over the Internet. Some connections are explainable and logical, but many are the product of chaos theory at work. He makes a lot of sense and I think that curriculum directors everywhere should listen to the audio file of his presentation today and look at his Powerpoints . Then, I spent time in Second Life , learning and thinking (and taking pictures (see them to the right.) I made connections with many new teachers who are now my "friends" in second life. I learned so much. (The best tour guide is Beth Ritter-Guth -- she is helpful and outstanding - a perfect person to take a group in. If you have a group going in soon, please mention it to me so I can share it with those who want to try it out!) I really want us to figure out a way to have teacher / student areas aw...

I'd like to share a transcript of an interview I did with Stephen Hogg today. For many new readers who wonder how I started in wikis and how beginners get started, it includes a lot of great information. (Note: Interesting thing about campfire, it shows the time of the host -- So, this was 2 hours later my time -- just a note b/c I have a rule that I don't blog at school.) Stephen H. Where do you teach and what grades/classes do you teach? Vicki D. I teach at Westwood Schools in Camilla GA Vicki D. I teach one semester of keyboarding to 8 th grade and 8 weeks to 5 th grade. Vicki D. I teach Computer Fundamentals to 9 th , Computer Science to 10 th Stephen H. So is your school K-12? Vicki D. and electives to juniors and seniors including computer graphic design (1 semester) and accounting (1 semester) Vicki D. K3-12 th grade -- private school with 350 students. Stephen H. Wow, that is a lot of preps you h...

Go to http://www.teachermovie.com/ right now and have every teacher you know watch this movie. It reminds me why I teach. I teach not for any high brow ideas of imparting incredible knowledge, although I want my students to be well educated. I teach not to receive great accolades, for the greatest of teachers often receive no thank yous in front of immense crowds. It is stories like this one that color our lives. We all have them. That pivotal child who shows us the power of a good teacher. I teach because I love them. I teach because they need me. And I teach... because I need them too. tag: Vicki A Davis , video , teaching , education , inspiration

What more can I say? Stop debating whether things have changed. Pick up and say, "What do I do now!" The good old days weren't any better than today and they had change too. The leaders and trailblazers of today will be recognized as visionaries tomorrow. Today, we're just "different." People want to change but they want people to help them who won't talk down to them, will explain things in simple terms, and understand that they don't "get it" in a millisecond and need to ask questions. tag: Web2 , video , youtube