Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

The first day of school was today and it was crazy for me -- as a teacher, 5 classes and 1 homeroom - with my IT hat - making sure all 100 computers and 3 servers were running, the new PowerLunch program went well and the upgraded gradebook to PowerTeacher was running smoothly.  Actually, it went very well (considering) today. But, it was most exciting to me when I hit Computer Science first and second period. The first objective is to understand the digital revolution , and with some summer reading I had done this summer on EMP ( electromagnetic pulse weapons and natural phenomenon) we started there. If a nuclear device goes off in our upper atmosphere, the radiation that falls to earth will not kill us - instead it will knock out anything with a microprocessor.  It is pretty scary to think what could happen - but it hit me -- what better way to understand the impact of the digital revolution than to extricate everything digital from our lives to understand where an EMP ...

Why don't you jump on over to In Need of a Base Case blog by Leigh Ann Sudol and answer her question about computer science education (Hat tip to my favorite Microsoft Blogger Alfred Thompson ): "So my question to you, my readers as well as to myself over the next few days is - how can I measure what my students think is important and relevant? I am considering some kind of electronic survey (so I can get a diverse sample) and I am wondering if I can somehow “narrow in” on particular topics (the way your eye doctor asks you lens1 or lens2?). Keeping in mind that I want to highlight particular aspects of computer science (see last post) I need to really think about what kinds of questions I would ask in order to get really interesting results." Leigh Ann is reflecting on another great article from Joanna Goode from the November 2008 issue of Communications of the ACM:  " Reprogramming College Preparatory Computer Science ."  I just urge her to realize that...

I'm a little nervous, this is my first post on the new blogger. Let me know if there are any glitches! My tenth graders select a "major" You may wonder what I'm talking about, but as I planned this 8 weeks with my amazing computer science class, I've been pondering the section of Thomas Friedman's book where he talks about the "strands" at Georgia Tech. This essentially allows students to select a dual area of interest-- computing and aestheics or computing and art. Then, students are qualified to work in a variety of areas and essentially find their passion. So, I have my projects that I usually conduct in computer science this time of year, only this time we'll take a different angle. I've asked my students to select an area of interest. This is to be an industry that they are already excited about -- hunting, special effects, hospitality -- these are some of the areas that the students have selected as their "majors." Their ...