Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Last Mother's Day I was commissioned to pick out the best laptop in the world for Mom by Dad. I did, or so I thought. It is an amazing IBM Thinkpad and we got everything for her. Mom is a former computer teacher and pretty proficient, but she has a temperamental satellite internet connection and doesn't like to be a "geek," she raised one (me) so she's earned the right to let me do it. So, we went with Vista because that was "the thing" (and IBM recommended it - now they've posted information on downgrading on their site however Mom just called and they said "there is nothing we can do for you legally, mam, and if you downgrade you will have a mess." ) Buying Vista was a big mistake! It has been nothing but trouble! It upgrades and updates every moment. The joke was when my sister got broadband cellular this week that I would borrow the card and blog on trips, she'd teach her online course for SCAD and Mom chimed in and said, ...

I'm tired and have got to go to bed, but this post from Ric Murry about a conference topic simply got my blood boiling! In his post , Ric quotes the conference description of a local ETTC, here it is: My Network vs. MySpace: Beating students at their own game Today’s tech-savvy students enjoy taking risks and have easy access to negative content. Richard J.B. Campbell of Securiant will discuss how K-12 organizations can address inappropriate web content and the explosion of social websites like MySpace and YouTube while effectively securing their networks with a limited staff and budget. Don’t miss your opportunity to hear from an expert and innovator in the education network security industry! Now, I'm not going to rush to judge Mr. Campbell, actually he and his company, Securiant , seem to be very reputable in the security area and provide services that block hackers from attacking the network but of course, they also offer filtration, etc. I would challenge Mr. Camp...

I love history but that love really developed after I got out of high school. In high school, I had to memorize WAY too much and it sucked all of the joy out of history for me. Rote memorization and the rise of Hitler? My thoughts of rigid discipline of rote memorization pull me hauntingly towards a series of novels I've been reading lately. This particular set of novels are historical fiction and begin in Germany just during the beginning of Hitler's rise and the first one has just concluded as Austria fell without a word. This first novel has haunted me. Because Hitler's rise to power was largely escalated by an "appeasement" policy where most nations and people took the attitude of "I don't care what happens to the helpless in Germany, as long as war doesn't come to my doorstep." Don't get me wrong, many great men and women ( Dietrich Bonhoffer comes to mind) did stand up against the wrong of the Reich and paid for it with their lives...