Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Good morning, my friends. I read a recent ebook by Andy Andrews entitled "Perfect" that changed my perspective. The point on the book was that we notice all the things that are wrong, but do we notice the perfect moments? Kip had sent me the ebook with a note that "let's start looking for perfect." This morning is one of those. I get up so early (5 am most days) that for me to sleep until 7am is quite a feat. Up at 7am, it was still foggy here in North Georgia, where my husband finally got me away from the self-imposed rigor of my daily routines meant to keep my house neat, the 3 kids in line and moving in the right direction, and to write and share with you in fulfilling my God given purpose in life of encouraging and helping others. You'll be reading this post and living this morning with me in a week or so because my family has asked that I keep when I'm gone (unless to conferences) private until after we come back. We are pretty practical country pe...

Written at the airport on my ipad (so I may not have links to everything in my post.) Yesterday, after my daughter did her part in Sylvia Martinez's incredible Birds of a Feather about attracting more girls to STEM fields, we were trekking back to the Embassy Suites. She kept asking me how she did as if one answer wouldn't suffice, she was seeking more affirmation. It struck me that this is what I do after every presentation and told her so. My advice to her was this: "After I present, I want to feel like the pouring out of my heart and all my energy to an audience meant something but the fact is, you have to know you did your best, learn from your mistakes, and walk on. You can't keep revisiting it, because it is in the past." At a conference like ISTE when you give all you have and have nothing left you want to feel it meant something. There's also an overwhelming feeling that you missed something. The fact is, you did miss something - if you look at you, yo...

I'm convinced that politicians, actors, and businesses are in the business of education because education hasn't taken care of its business. I don't think that educators should sit back and complain about the current state of education because the current state of education is in place largely because of our own state of mind. It is time to change our minds about what we can do and do it. It is time to stop talking and start living it. Get to work at work worth doing. We need educational victory gardens I think that an excellent example of a massive societal effort is that of the Victory Garden which resulted in over $1.2 billion in food being produced by the end of World War 2. Victory Gardens were planted on public and private lands to grow food and take the pressure off of suppliers. In Britain up to 40% of their vegetables came from Victory Gardens. Everyone took responsibility to do their part or more than their part to help. We need lots of educational opportun...

How to give a great ignite talk « Speaker Confessions INformation on the ignite speech format. I'll be giving one tomorrow at the global education summit at #iste between 2-5 pm at ISTE. tags: education globaled flatclass Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: How to (virtually) attend NECC 2006 (and make a difference) When I couldn't go to ISTE in 2006 (It used to be called NECC) - this is what I did - I wrote a whole series of virtual posts that year and many people even thought I was there! Here is what I did back then to encourage those of you who are left at home.  tags: iste12 news education teaching iste July 4 Lesson plans Some lesson plans for Independence day. Teachers from other countries will want to get these lessons if they want to teach history and culture of the US. tags: education teaching july4 independence day usa holidays ...

Here are notes and things I've seen so far that someone following ISTE would want to know. These may post in other posts, but I'm extracting just ISTE information for those following the conference and will post it each time I get a long enough list. Evernote Hello | Evernote Many people seem to be using Evernote hello at #iste12 - I'd download it on your smartphone. tags:  education   iste12 Collaborative Writing in the Cloud I'm going to be sharing a lot about collaborative writing and Common Core writing standards. For US educators to start teaching collaborative writing that we're going to have to align and help them understand how it will meet the standards they are using. While this will relate to anyone who wants to use cloud tools, those implementing common core standards will be very interested. This is the form to complete if you're interested in getting a copy of the book. tags:  education   news   iste12   iste   commoncor...

The Road Ahead: 3 Things Education Conferences Need View more PowerPoint from Vicki Davis I presented to the ISTE affiliates. Because I had the chance, I had three things I wanted to tell them to encourage them and help them improve education one teacher at a time. This is a copy of the presentation. If you want to see the notes and what I said with each slide, I've got most of them on the main presentation on Slideshare.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: How to (virtually) attend NECC 2006 (and make a difference) When I couldn't go to ISTE in 2006 (It used to be called NECC) - this is what I did - I wrote a whole series of virtual posts that year and many people even thought I was there! Here is what I did back then to encourage those of you who are left at home.  tags: iste12 news education teaching iste Middle School: Physical Education: Games, sports teaching resources - Share My Lesson Health teachers and coaches will find some interesting lesson plans for teaching their subjects. It is fascinating to see the types of things being downloaded relating to this topic including a "shot put teaching card", "orienteering and fitness activities" some gymnastics lessons and swimming ...

July 4 lesson plans As you plan for July 4th, here are some lessons and activities you can do. Share my lesson is a new site for US teachers, would you upload and share your lesson plans. We can do better than this even if the site has been up less than a week. Share those lessons. (There is a contest going right now too.) tags: education teaching july Race around the clock times tables - Resources - SML An interesting way to review multiplication tables. tags: education teaching Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

I'm at #socialedcon at #iste12 and have some important points that I'd like to interject about why we need efolios. Since it would take too much time in the session, I'm going to share them on my blog. Please forgive me for not being able to link as easily as I'm cranking this quickly. Portfolios should be: 1- About learning and legacy. It isn't just about assessment but about helping kids connect to their legacy and who that student is. efolios should be about taking kids from a number to a unique individual and give us a unique way to celebrate creativity beyond the standardized test. 2 - Efolios should make kids not feel like a number to feeling unique. They should be able to pull all of their lives together. Steve Hargadon shares how his daughter used her blog to get into college. Joyce Valenza says that "kids don't think about archiving and sharing what they are doing in their lives. We are obscuring their names of everything they achieve because of la...

[<a href="http://storify.com/coolcatteacher/crowdsourced-iste12-advice" target="_blank">View the story "Crowdsourced #iste12 advice" on Storify</a>]

Pinterest / Search results for #iste12 This hashtag search shows everything tagged #iste12 on Pinterest.  tags: education news iste12 Sat 6/23 SOCIALEDCON - ISTE UNPLUGGED Socialedcon will be Saturday morning at ISTE and I'll be there to spend time with friends and meet new ones. If you're curious, here's the page with information including if they will be streaming. tags: education news iste12 Common Core State Standards - SML Common Core information center. Some good resources on Common Core and what is happening with them. tags: commoncore news education ...

Search for display board teaching resources - Share My Lesson Here are some display boards that you can use in your classroom as you prepare for the start of the new school year. I hope you'll add your own (there is a competition and you can win money!) tags: education teaching displays classroom organization Early Elementary (Grades K-2) Activities, Lesson Plans, Educational Worksheets & Handouts - Share My Lesson Early elementary lessons organized by topic from share my lesson. There are almost 40K free resources. This is a great place to join. tags: education teaching elemchat Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Proof of area of a trapezium = 1/2(a+b)h - Resources - SML Matthewm is a very interesting teacher who has a lot of great math videos he's sharing. When you join sharemylesson, you'll want to follow him if you teach middle or high school math. tags: education news math Information about Common Core State Standards - Questions about Common Core - Share My Lesson Common core forums have been created in the share my lesson website - cosponsored by the aft and tes, this is going to be an interesting place where teachers converse. tags: education commoncore news newapp Finland: Discovery through Technology - Resources - SML I like to watc...

Share My Lesson - Free K-12 Teacher Resources Aligned to Common Core State Standards So excited that one of my favorite sites for teachers (TES) has created a website particularly for US teachers called share my lesson. It is linked with many other websites and already has more than 200K resources on the site. tags: education news teaching flatclass Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Simple Pinterest for Beginners This is my blog post on how to get started with Pinterest, including tips to easily score an invite (It isn't that hard.) This is a great thing to do over the summer. tags: education pinterest howto teaching news Rachel Lynette (reallyrachel) on Pinterest Lots of free resources for teachers. Follow the board for your grade level and find a lot of great ideas.  tags: education pinterest teaching Sara Hart (abbril) on Pinterest If you are a homeschooler, then Sara Hart's pinterest boards are must follow resources for you. tags: ...

There is a lot of interest in pinterest from educators this summer. I pulled together a collection of all my pinterest resources to help you get started. Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Simple Pinterest for Beginners This is my blog post on how to get started with Pinterest, including tips to easily score an invite (It isn't that hard.) This is a great thing to do over the summer. tags:  education   pinterest   howto   teaching   news Eric Sheninger (esheninger) on Pinterest ERic has moved to pinterest and has a set of pinboards that any Administrator will learn from.  tags:  pinterest   education   administration   news Rachel Lynette (reallyrachel) on Pinterest Lots of free resources for teachers. Follow the board for your grade level and find a lot of great ideas.  tags:  education   pinterest   teaching Sara Hart (abbril) on Pinterest If you are a homeschooler, then Sara Hart's pinterest b...