Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

One day after I've written about money, today, I'm linking to another great post on 10 Ways to be a Lighthearted teacher . This is another find from Tumblr. I think that some of the best content for teachers is on Tumblr. See my Beginners Guide for Tumblr . It must work, because now I am following 103 and have a little over 200 followers. I'm learning a lot over there. I also like how I can queue my posts and it sends it into Twitter. It is just a different kind of blogging there - random snippets and reblogging. I do think Tumblr is onto something. Don't expect this blog to go away. But now, my big four are Blogger , Facebook , Twitter , and Tumblr . Yes, my Tumblr blog has an RSS feed too if you want that one. I post about 6 times a day over there. Related Posts: 10 Ways to be a Lighthearted teacher   Beginners Guide for Tumblr

Flash mobs are becoming a big part of the viral hit scene on Youtube. Just take the University of Kansas Jayhawks mens basketball game flashmob this week - over a quarter of a million hits since posted on the KU Athletic Youtube Channel . Over the next few years it will be interesting to see as this trend grows. Will it cause problems? yes. Will it cause controversy? Yes, there will be times it will be innappropriate, done poorly or smack of commercialism masquerading as grassroots (brown roots I guess. ;-) Will it be fun? Sure. What will it be? Who knows -more "random acts of culture" like from the Opera Company of Philadelphia's Hallalujah Chorus in a department store at Christmas or another in a food court in November or Flashmobs dancing to MC Hammer in Clothing store. Yes, more of that too. But as more organizations like Improv Everywhere formalize performance art and companies realize the marketing potential of a viral video ( Old Spice Guy ) it is ...

Preteens love him, adults who happen to be within 100 yards of the squeals may have a strong opinion, but it is certainly not love.  If you've never met him (and can actually see youtube while viewing my blog, meet Fred) Casting calls go out for a movie based on Youtube's pop phenom, Fred. Don't dismiss the reach of someone like Fred - the above video posted on September 2, 2009 has over 2 million views, over 30,000 ratings, and 25,000+ comments. (This video is, by the way, rated TV-Y as some producers are now beginning to use US TV ratings for their videos .) As annoying as he is to me, it speaks volumes of the world that our students live in - a world that connects them in viral ways using video, text, comments that we are still only at the cusp of understanding and utilizing.  Surely there are positive ways that we can harness the power of social media in ways that generate such views, comments, and ratings -- or must school always be relegated to being viewed ...

Here are my favorite Web 2.0 ways to experience the Summer Olympic games.  1 - Watch It NBC Olympics has a really rockin' site to watch the Olympics.  On the left side of the page, you can see that the things that are live are marked as such.  To me, it is a much more robust way than using the clicker. On the down side, news reports say that "many of the most popular events will not be streamed live" here in the US, where NBC owns exclusive rights. If you're in other countries, Youtube is your official Olympics channel .  It is strange how this happened, but Cnet says : "While NBC holds the Olympics digital video-on-demand rights in the U.S., rights have not been sold on an exclusive basis in more than 70 countries. In those countries, people can access the specialized YouTube Olympics channel youtube.com/beijing2008 , starting on August 6." So, in this case, the US has to watch NBC, while the rest of the world gets youtube. In the US we...

Happy Birthday to Me! Wow! Your twitters, skypes, little e-mail notes and more have really made today special. In addition, my family was wonderful and my amazing husband sent me flowers. Although I still have a stack of grading from here to Qatar - I had a good day. So, I thought that today, I'd give 38 presents to you for you to open and enjoy. One for each year of this amazing blessed life the good Lord has seen fit to give me. All of these are free and so so cool! I challenge you to pick a present today, open it in my honor, and let me know what you think! Songbird - This is THE cool opensource alternative to iTunes and it is connected with Skreemr , the music search engine. Timebridge - This scheduling system plugs into google calendar or outlook and lets you invite people to a meeting, select four time alternatives, and then it books the meeting time that everyone can attend and puts it on your calendar. It reminds them and it rocks!! Get Atomic Learning Free for 3...

Just taking a break from my binge cleaning spree of the whole house to share with a you a few tools I want to get to know better: VoiceThread - This is a tool that is on my hotlist to implement in our elementary school. I also want to use it more. (The one day I was testing it, they were plagued with server problems.) Google Notebook - I'm going to experiment with student notetaking and sharing in here -- we've done it in chatzy and Google Docs (I have several students who routinely group notetake in Google Docs, it is a great thing.) StumbleUpon - I've been refamiliarizing myself with this old favorite lately. They've done a few things to make it more usable. I find it a great way to find new "stuff." Google Reader - I'm going to work with pulling my bloglist out of google reader instead of bloglines and share the Google Shared Clips. This reader is so very useful that I've fallen in love with RSS again. (I still use netvibes and iGoogle, how...

OK, I'm testing Joost which is a pretty hot commodity. Somehow, they considered me worthy of testing it and thus far it is pretty cool. I got a notification a bit later that I had 3 invites and gave them out on the WOW2 show a couple of weeks a go. Now, the number has been multiplied greatly and I have 100. So, to invite you to joost, the way to watch TV on your PC, all you have to do is comment here and share: 1) Your favorite Web 2 tool in the classroom that you are using RIGHT NOW! and (What keeps you "juiced" about Web 2) 2) One thing you do to stay motivated when you have a tough day! (Pardon the pun but how do you stay juiced!) And then, make sure that your e-mail is in the blogger profile (or contact me and give me your e-mail) tag: hz07 , Web2 , joost , Vicki A Davis , teaching , education

I got this off teacher tube . I think it is a great example of folks having a sense of humor. Meanwhile -- some other videos are cropping up that make you think. And my laughter turned to tears! If you're teaching about the Holocaust, have the students watch the video below, then, after studying the Holocaust, have them create a video response! Give students a reason! They love to interact with their peers and this gives them a great method of virtual interaction. Sadly, this video says only a little over 50% of our school aged students know what the holocaust is! I would love for such videos to include citations at the end, particularly if we're going to use them in the classroom. It is important to be able to cite your source! Will Teacher Tube Take Off? I don't know. It is a very needed resource and will only do as well as those who rate and evaluate it. I like the idea. I also like the idea, however, of being connected to the world at large (a la youtube.) Can a...

a simulpost with TechLearning As I read about the evolution of the Web , I just feel that many of the experts are missing it! (Perhaps the 3D web is part of the " intelligent agent " idea, but I'm not so sure.) Yes, I think the semantic web is important (see the W3c specs ) and inherently part of the future of the web, but I think there is one overarching evolution happening right now under our feet that is inexorably enmeshed with the semantic web. It is there amidst the video games and "fun things" that most educators refuse to recognize. With "Web 2.0" barely taking a "bit" part in most of today's classrooms, the next evolution of the web, I predict, is not Web 3.0. I think it will be Web 3D. The 3D web! Lest one think I have come up with this, visionaries have been discussing this for around 15 years. The 3D web has really been around since the Sims went online and allowed people to virtually live next to each other. Howev...