Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Falling is scary. Most of us fall down sometimes. I can trip and fall flat on the ground. When I fall down I have two choices. I can sit there or I can stand up (if I'm still physically able to.) What about failing? Children fall a lot - especially when they are learning to walk. But falling, as we get older, is something we really try to avoid at all costs. As bones get more brittle, we are afraid of not getting back up or of getting really hurt. Let's get one thing straight. Failing and falling aren't the same thing. It is odd to me that kids (and adults) don't mind a "fail" in a video game. In fact epic "fails" go viral on the Internet as people mess up and do dumb things that are laughed about later. An F makes me as a teacher feel I have failed to teach I don't receive any benefit at all from giving an "F" for failure. To me, an F represents something I haven't taught. Now I know many teachers have their rooms full ...

I've been thinking about the 19 firefighters in Arizona who died unexpectedly with the sudden turn of a fire. I've also been thinking of the teachers who gave their lives protecting children from gunmen and tornadoes this year. I've even been thinking about the janitors who quietly do their jobs in our school - do you know that if they scrimped on their job when no one was looking - we could literally have outbreaks of disease among our precious children? How can we help promote gratitude and active thankfulness among this generation? I just wonder what we as teachers can do to help promote a grateful generation. How can we help kids know the importance of saying "thank you" to and to be glad for what they have? This is something I want to be more of what I do this year at school. Sure, I've got standards to meet and a curriculum to accomplish, but it is kind of like this. If I focus on making sure my children keep their room clean while forgettin...

Words are wimps I'm supposed to turn in the words for my son's annual ad today. I've been writing at 5 am. It is just one page. One page to summarize how I feel and what I want him to carry with him. But one page can't capture it. It won't. It can't. I have to pick the words that will inspire him and hope that 18 years has been enough time to tell him how much I love him and all the things that he needs to know to make it in this world. So, how can I leave a tiny piece of me on this page, so that when I'm gone, he can look at it and say ... "yeah, that's my Mom... that is what she would say to me if she were here right now." How can capture a bit of immortality -- or at least a fleeting bit, as long as he's alive, because in the end, he's the only one who will really read or care what I said. Tidal Waves of Change I was completely clueless about what this means and still am. It is kind of like playing in the surf at the bea...

English: A special education teacher assists one of her students. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) As I'm grading and giving feedback to students, some of them are sending me responses. I'm literally crying over this one -- I've just included part of it: "You are my roll model, and I want to be like you. You have so many unbelievably wonderful qualities that I wish I possessed too. I'm so thankful for your integrity and love for your students. You amaze me! I can't tell you how grateful I am to have you for a teacher. God bless you and happy New Year!" How could God have blessed me so much with students who take a minute to know that teachers have feelings too and that we often wonder if all that we give is worth it -- if anyone notices? Just want you all to know that I'm still here. Yesterday was the first day I've felt human in over a month with one of the worst illnesses I can remember having in a long time - largely exacerbated by a very ...

I had to smile as I saw this on a wiki page tonight as I am entering final grades for progress reports tomorrow: Students want to have their own place on the Net. A place that is theirs. Every time I bring these digital natives into a place where they can create a full-blown page of their own making I'm overwhelmed by their desire to own and create things. They don't just want networks of friends - certain kids like that and others don't really get into it. They want to create. You won't know you're a good swimmer until you get in the water Students don't just "know" the Net and how to use it. They don't just automatically "get" collaboration. Yes, their certainly take to it quickly but a person may just "know" how to swim but will never know he knows until he comes in contact with water. There is a whole world of experience out there that students will not get just on Facebook and in email. (And students without acces...

Image via Wikipedia Part 4 - Web 2.0 Leadership - In this four part series, I cover tagging, review building a PLN with an iGoogle page, notes on wiki editing, and end up with Leadership notes. This is taken from a blog post for my ninth graders. Really this is leadership and their future - more than Web 2.0 but part of it. Web 2.0 Leadership Finally, for my students I have a word for you. Handouts are going Out. This is a tough, competitive world going through tough times right now. No one is going to "hand" you anything. The handouts that are already being given out are rapidly going away and will continue to. You need to be able to collaborate globally. There are skills that you need to have that most adults, yes, most educators don't understand right now but you are in this project because your teacher (and teachers if you are from another school) see and understand that global collaboration is an essential part of your future. And global collab...

The battle for the eyes is getting heated. If you'll read Context is King: How Videos Are Found and Consumed Online , some very telling trends are unveiled that make advertisers very uncomfortable. The article says: "According to a recent NY Times article, in the 1952-53 season, more than 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen.  In fact, up until twenty years ago, you could buy a 30-second spot on CBS, NBC or ABC and reach “everyone.”  Today, NBC’s prime time reach is 5%.  Sure, NBC is lagging CBS and ABC, but neither the Tiffany network nor Disney’s counterpart is faring much better.  The secret’s out: fewer people watch TV and teenagers spend every waking minute connected to the Internet, increasingly through the mobile web." So, how are these ads going to be served up? Cell phones, social media. Other interesting stats.  Here are the averages of a youtube video: "It will garner 500 views over time 25% of thos...

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 ...

Image via Wikipedia This from Odd News: Harvard University's moves to seek U.S. trademarks for everyday phrases such as "Ask what you can do" are defensive measures, a school official says. What else are they trademarking?  "Lessons Learned" and "Managing Yourself" said the Boston Globe in their August first, 2009 Article.  It also has a pending application for "The world’s thinking." The Boston Globe reports: "Securing each trademark costs from $500 to $1,000 in the United States and thousands more overseas, Calixto said. Legal disputes run up the costs. Harvard pays for the effort with the more than $1 million in royalties it earns each year from licensing its trademarks to such entities as bookstores and mall kiosks selling Harvard apparel; about a third of royalties go toward scholarships, he said." To me, it is interesting, but also disconcerting.  I have a cousin who was in a music program at a public universit...

I'd like the world to set a goal for 2009 - there are so many that we could set.  But to me, ending the genocide in Darfur should top the list: See what students say: Kotter from Flat Classroom w/ contribution from students from MICDS in St. Louis -- the Interview where they discussed the UN involvement is incredible. Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project See information from MICDS on Web 2.0 and the Sudan Project about how they are using Web 2.0 to educate people about the genocide in Darfur through Web 2.0 Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project Kaycie from Flat Classroom Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project Speak out!

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 looking at the policies for Open Access coming down from Universities. ( Add your institution to this growing list which also includes links to those repositories.)  This one from the University of Southern California : "University of California faculty shall routinely grant to The Regents of the University of California a license to place in a non-commercial open-access online repository the faculty member's scholarly work published in a scholarly journal or conference proceedings. In the event a faculty member is required to assign all or a part of his or her copyright rights in such scholarly work to a publisher as part of a publication agreement, the faculty member shall retain in the publication agreement the right to grant the foregoing license to the Regents. Faculty may opt out of this policy for any specific work or invoke a specified delay before such work appears in an open-access repository [in accordance with [an] opt-out mechanism set forth [in the...

I echo Grumpy Old Teacher's sentiments exactly when he says: Again I say, let's get our students (and colleagues) to stop using Google Images, and get some real quality images into their work! Amen to that, grumpy! Suggestions, including one new one: Every Stock Photo -- Free search Engine for stock photos including the ability to critique and share your photos.  What a great idea. (from Grumpy) Flickr Storm - (Also from Grumpy) Creative Commons Search - I've been using the built in creative commons searches in Firefox to find ours. (This is what we use.) What are your places for good, high quality, free photos? 

ASCD's article " Rigor Redefined " is an absolute MUST READ, MUST SHARE for everyone who remotely cares about education. Tony Wagner has done a remarkably concise job of reflecting on the state of education.  Below, I've extracted my annotations (items on the left are quotes from the article, Items indented with the clear circled bullet are from me), or you may view the annotated version of this article which will include all of those who annotate and share on this article using Diigo . He talks about risk aversion, I wonder what educators among us are willing to take the risk to go towards this when compensation is increasingly tied to test scores that measure only rote memorization and test taking ability. ASCD I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and t...

This is a great case study to share with the students. The article at PC world says: "The widely reported problems with pop singer Alicia Keys ' MySpace profile have been cropping up on the social networking site for the past ten days and are likely to continue, a security expert said Friday... As with the Alicia Keys hack, which was discovered Thursday by Exploit Prevention Labs , these pages try to install malicious software on the victim's PC. If the victim's software is not fully patched, this can happen silently, but if that fails, the sites will tell the victim that he needs to install a video codec. That file is actually malware, researchers say. In all cases, hackers used the same background, the same Web code and the same malicious payload. "It's the exact same hijack," Boyd said via instant message. But one difference has been the amount of pain experienced by the bands after they were hacked. While the Alicia Keys site was repaired and up an...

After reading the Teacher's at Risk blog post from a few minutes a go, I don't know what makes me angrier at this scenario. This teacher quotes an article from the Mississauga News : "A grade six student at St. Sebastian Elementary School has been censored by his principal after writing a speech about being bored in class…”My message is to you,” he (the student) writes in his speech, “let nobody steal your joy by keeping you bored. Find a way out. To be happy is your purpose in life.” Oh, my goodness. #1 The student was asked to write a speech. The student wrote a speech. The student did that and a quite moving one at that! Now, I disagree that one's purpose in life is to just "be happy," however, if the classroom is devoid of happiness and the excitement of learning, something is fundamentally wrong! #2 Students have a right to their opinion. If I'm bored, I'm bored. I have a student that stays bored in one of my classes much of the time because...