Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

We don't know why so many intelligent, smart young ladies steer away from technology and science-related fields. We don't know why one of the highest growth industries in the world that allows the excellent to telecommute from home and gives some of the greatest flexibility in work hours doesn't attract more young women. But, lets start with something we do know. We do know that teacher,  Pat Yongpradit , winner of Microsoft Innovative Educators Forum last October in Cape Town, South Africa, is attracting young girls into his Computer Science program through an after school video game programming club. Meet Pat, a young teacher introducing young girls into the exciting field of Computer Science. I spent some time interviewing Pat last October in Cape Town and want to share his interview here. If you've got a story like Pat's, please take the time to apply for Microsoft's Innovative Educator Forum . The applications are due on May 15th. It is an exc...

I enjoyed talking to the delightful Prantika Das from India when I was in South Africa. This video shows me several things: 1) the evolutionary nature of innovation and 2) the power of putting handhelds in student's hands.  There are great teachers doing amazing things throughout the world. Innovate or become Irrelevant! This is part of an ongoing series of video conversations that I filmed while in Microsoft's Innovative Teacher Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. Next year is in Washington, DC so find out information for how to apply in your part of the world! Related articles Got a Great Project? Share!! #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Six and Seven Year Old Boys Collect 8 tons of waste in "Trash to Treasure" #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Moleihi Sekese: Integrating Technology with No Electricity? #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) My Study Mate: Students in Ireland Hand Coding and Maintaining a Video Sharing Site #msief (coolcatteacher...

David Walsh and Ursula Hynes from Ireland share their cool site ( http://www.mystudymate.ie/aboutus.html ) that started as a school project. In this fascinating project the students hand code in HTML (yes, by hand) and create videos on various topics. They are inviting other schools to participate and it is growing. Related articles Shout Learning: Listening to the Organizers #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Moleihi Sekese: Integrating Technology with No Electricity? #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Student Sourcing Science: Shout Learning Announced at Microsoft Innovative Educators Conference #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Six and Seven Year Old Boys Collect 8 tons of waste in "Trash to Treasure" #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) Microsoft VP Anthony Salcito: Getting Technology to the Next Classroom #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com) [ #msief ]: Use stumbling blocks as stepping stones: Moliehi Sekese, Lesotho (edu.blogs.com) [ #msief ...

Shea Grisham,North Carolina (USA) and Linda Bradfield (South Africa) The bandwidth issues experienced here in South Africa, called the most wired country in South Africa, have hit home for me.  Really, I haven't been yelling and stomping my feet - it would do no good. I've been doing what I can do -- grabbing my handy camera and recording everything I can to share with you when I get online. This is what people do and why we must be flexible as we collaborate globally.  Great barriers have been overcome by teachers here and lots of hard work has been part of what they've done! Tell Your Story This has truly been a great experience and I hope that even more teachers will apply for the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum next year. It is a competition and I'm so impressed with those who have made it here. They use a variety of tools -- some Microsoft, some not, but many are using the free tools as a component of what they are doing. Next year, we will...

Interview with Michael Furdyk, Co-Founder TakingIT Global and Claudia Brown from the Smithsonian Institute about the ideas behind their collaboration, scientist's student sourcing data collection, and the projects that will be part of the Shout Learning project. Related articles Student Sourcing Science: Shout Learning Announced at Microsoft Innovative Educators Conference #msief (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)

  Moleihi Sekese from Lesotho, Educator's Choice award winner 2009 for the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum, is a teacher who has no electricity in her school.  While studying endangered indigenous plants, she began by having students borrow parent cell phones to text her their observations about the endangered plants. ("I was receiving texts until midnight, she said.) Moleihi Sekese The students had a bake sale to raise money to go to the Internet cafe in town (15 km away) to blog. When they wanted to raise awareness about protecting endangered plants, they had teachers bring charged laptops to school so they could scan the hand drawn images and make flyers in Microsoft Publisher. To create a botanical garden growing these plants, they raised money to go to a botanical garden and filmed how to create their own. They produced the film and then went home and watched it to re-learn the steps for making their own garden to grow the endangered plants and protect the...

Free Tools Highlights of this conversation to me were the conversation on the free tools Microsoft has rolled out for teachers. Things like AutoCollage ,   PhotoSynth , World Wide Telescope , Mouse Mischief ,   SongSmith , and more including the Microsoft Free Tools Guide . There are some really handy, stable offline alternatives that you can install on your computers at school where you have bandwidth issues or just like the stability of having  a program installed on your machine. Skydrive We talked about what Skydrive really means for students (you no longer have to open up that MLA paper into a Google Doc or other tool and lose all your formatting but can use skydrive and open the file on any computer with Microsoft Word or in the free online Microsoft Word editing tool.)  I've found that the only programs that can handle MLA papers are offline word processors so this is amazing news for teachers who have students write term papers! Skydrive also gives us...

When you think that you can't do it any more, meet Naomi Julius. A teacher who had me laughing and crying and inspired to overcome all excuses, particularly those I give myself in my own mind. This teacher often has forty or fifty children in her school in this school in South Africa. Her comments on teaching and love for the children shine through for those who make make excuses for themselves. Sometimes one must see the true face of inspiration to realize that often we limit ourselves by our own mindset. Her school, Hout Bay Secondary School has over five hundred students with fifteen teachers and a teaching principal. A more affluent school down the street has forty teachers for their 500 students! yet, even in the face of injustice she inspires.She has created an "enviro club" and as she greeted us teachers she said: "usually we have one teacher and lots of students. Now we have lots of teachers and a few students, so feel free to grab one and teach them so...

I'll be adding to this flickr stream set. Make sure you view the descriptions to understand the meaning behind each of these photos.  Come back to see more as I upload them.

In this interview with Linda Bradfield from St.John's College in South Africa she discussed the Trash to Treasure project . It is so exciting to see teachers work with parents and make changes in behavior and also improve technology skills. "This project involved 6 and 7 year old boys collaborating with their peers to collect eight tons of waste in six weeks. The boys, together with their parents and teacher, found online information about recycling and collated it in their Trash-to-Treasure wiki. They also used '2Create aa Superstory" to create e-books and used Skype to communicate." p 71 Microsoft Worldwide Education Forum 2010 p 71 This project was presented at the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Education Forum in Capetown South Africa, 2010. Note: Part of the Microsoft Partners in Learning Worldwide Innovative Education Forum 2010 series. Click the msief tag below to see all posts in this series.