Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

David Warlick had a thought provoking post about Clarence Fisher 's work (See my post on Clarence's amazing classroom ) that hits at the heart of my edublogging contemplation for the summer: One thing that struck me was that Fisher left my Class Blogmeister classroom blogging tool and chose James Farmer’s LearnerBlogs . The interesting story is that he left for exactly the reason why scores of educators from around the world are signing up for Blogmeister. They want and need the control that blogmeister is designed to deliver. Yet, Fisher found that it was the control that was preventing classroom blogging from working to the degree that he wanted. Therefore, he switched to Farmer’s Wordpress-based blogging service for students, a system that is open, where student blogs immediately go public. First of all, let me say that Dave is refreshingly analytical about classroom practices, he does not have a hidden agenda (like selling Classblogmeister...a service he does for free) o...

I am thrilled beyond belief at this morning's 11:30 a.m. post in the New Scientist . (I love Slashdot! ) This new open source software allows the natural language used in experiments to be "translated" into language that computers can understand. The new tool could revolutionise the way scientific papers are written and help scientists make creative leaps, researchers say... "If lots of scientific papers were written in this way you could very quickly see whether an experiment has contradictions or agreements with other work," King told New Scientist . "It would also allow much more sophisticated search engines to find what you're looking for." The thing that thrills me is that so much pure research has traditionally occured in isolated microsmic organizations. This tool, EXPO, will truly allow scientists to collaborate and cooperate like never before. If it works as intended, I think it could help laser focus and accelerat...

Brian Satterfield of Tech Soup has written an excellent article entitled, " Exploring the World of Wikis." Tech Soup is an organization dedicated to technology tools for non profit organizations. He has profiled several organizations using wikis (including my favorite, the Westwood wikispace that I manage.) He begins with an excellent profile of a worthy organization, Never Again International. This organization is a a nonprofit network dedicated to promoting peace and preventing genocide, and uses a wiki to share information around the world. Brian does a good job of profiling the various types of wiki environments and choices and it is a good jumping off point for anyone who is ready to get started with wikis. In addition to profiling Never Again International and the Westwood Wiki, there is an interesting profile of Client Access to Integrated Services and Information (CAISI) — a Canadian nonprofit working to build software that helps homeless shelters, advocacy agen...

This summer as I draw up network charts for the school, redecorate my house , and draw up graphic organizers for my new textbooks, I will be using the same online tool: gliffy ! (Hat tip to Daniel Riveria at SEGA Tech ) You download NOTHING and it is FREE! To sign up on gliffy just do the following: 1) Go to www.gliffy.com 2) Click Register. 3) Enter your name, e-mail, and a password 4) Name your document. 5) You're ready to draw. Drawing Made Easy: A) First I suggest that you click on the tabs on the left, they are very cool! You will see things for floorplans and for network schematics. The flow chart icons are great for graphic organizers. B) Just click on the icon and drag it onto the drawing area. You can then drag the handlebars to make it bigger. You can click the little green rotate button at the top and turn it around. C) Now, if you want to make a shape transparent or another color, just look on the right hand side at the paint bucket in the properties area. You...

I was looking at a meaty post by fellow Georgian Jeff Giddens at SEGA Tech entitled, " No Internet for You." In this post he says: Professors at Bentley College are able to use what is called a “ classroom network control system ” as an internet kill-switch . Instructors can, without a lot of fuss, bring Ethernet and WiFi service to a screeching halt. I was thinking about a discussion that I had with some recent college students about current forms of dishonesty on college campuses. I do understand that there are "kill switches" for cell phone signals as well. (I read a recent article on how China is scrambling cell phone transmissions to curb cheating on entrance exams.) I am not sure that Internet access is the majority of the problem. Candid Cheating on the Camera Phone! From what I'm told the biggest problem is that students literally use their cell phone to take photographs of the most important pages of their books or a rewritten copy of their notes...

I enjoy the TechnoSpud blog and came across her comments about the end of the school year: And that is how I am ending my school year as well. I think that I grumbled a bit more than I needed to but as I look back at the final product of what I have accomplished in the last 10 years at my job, I stop and say "ooh and ahhh" and am pleased with the results. I hope you feel the same with your teaching!!! I just had to comment because I had a great conversation with a colleague whom I greatly respect that reminded me of the up and down struggles that are reflected in her comments. Here is a summary of my comments to Kathy's post: I had asked my teacher friend, Clara Williams, who is a veteran teacher of 30 years if she ever stopped doubting herself at the end of the year and if she ever could sleep the day before school started. She has been teaching Middle School English in both public and private schools for over thirty years. This is what she said to me: "I have n...

I came across this post on Slashdot tonight as I watch the Apprentice. Predicting Malware : "Pseudonymous B*ard writes 'SANS has an interesting article showing how to predict what forms future malware will take. For example, last year there were many hurricane-related scams, while this year, another bad hurricane season is predicted. SANS has noticed that the scammers are gearing up for this and that many new domains with the words Alberto, Beryl, donation, and hurricane have been registered (Alberto & Beryl are the first two names on the hurricane list). The only question now is whether hackers will be able to preempt any of these scams before they have a chance to be used?' With malware, hacking, cybercrime, spamming, spoofing, splogging, and cell phone text viruses bringing so many Internet users a sluggish Internet experience, we simply must take character education to the next level. We need students who will go on to counteract such cyberbullies and cyberpredator...