Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

I have lived in the computer lab at school this week, finally finishing up the move out (so I can have it cleaned and put in the new lab) at 9:30 pm on Tuesday night. Today, I will sail away until Monday on a ship of dreams. As I look at the tropics, my dreams of technological innovation heat up. After this new lab, a laptop campus hovers on my hopeful horizon. I care not to frolic in the flotsam of frivolous hype but rather choose to dive deeper into the riptide of reality. Technology is a medium that is fast replacing pen and paper. It is a commodity and a staple. It is a necessary tool that must be accessible to all teachers and students. It does not replace a teacher, it augments a good teacher in a powerful way. Technology is no longer a course, it charts the course of life as kids google their way through life. To refuse to adequately supply a classroom with computers is akin to not purchasing books. In fact, it would be easier to buy computers and forget the books in lie...

Giving a voice to the voiceless, that is what blogging can do. It also causes introspection and analysis which is one of the highest forms of cognition and is to be encouraged. The SAT One of my excellent students has spoken out about the SAT and her feelings about it. I think her words are right on the money. I hope you'll read her full post (and comment.) I am responsible for the SAT prep program and work with the Math and English department to complete a comprehensive review. Our students take a "practice" SAT (which is a real one from years past) for me each spring in their 9th, 10th, and 11th grade years. We require every 10th, 11th, and 12th grader to take the SAT at least once. (I could ramble on about this, but I won't.) Here is what she says about the preparation we are doing: I have taken the old SAT, the new SAT, the PSAT, and practice SATs at my school. I mean I really know how to fill in those bubbles. I am thankful that my school pushes its students...

The road less traveled will con-verge and not di-verge! I've been reading about some incredible setups at Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies. Their new building designs reflects the evolution of mainstream media. " The core of the design of this building is the idea of convergence. Think TV on your cellphone. Think internet on your tv. Think radio on your iPod (podcasts). Workspaces lend themselves to multimedia production (where photojournalism students sit alongside design students who put together the festival newspaper Cue)." They are doing amazing things: Last year, for example, students packaged at least one video report a day focused on big stories or issues at fest. There was also an interactive map where site visitors could mark points anywhere in town and make notes (which others could see). Festinos could also take pictures with their cellphones and then send them (via MMS) to a dedicated number which saw these pictures posted on the s...

Another blogger, Canadian teacher Chris Harbeck, has taken up the call to reflect on last year. The result is a detailed analysis of this year's classroom experience and plans for next semester. Like most good 2.0 Teachers , he has a "teacher central" hub for students in all classes to see messages and instructions from the teachers. He shares this with the grade 7 math teacher, Mr. Reese. (I do this too but I use my wiki which pulls RSS feeds from various sources of info.) He then has four blogs, one for each class of thirty six students: Class blog for 816 Class blog for 817 Class blog for 841 Class Blog for 873 Chris shares his Scribe Hall of Fame with Darren Kuropatwa ,and Mr. Reece (7th grade bloggers). This great tool recognizes good work and points out why. It gives students something to strive for and promotes the sharing of good information. He uses a unique " growing post " concept which seems to be almost like a web quest for writing a ...

Here is the most common question I get about wikis as posted on the Westwood wikispace yesterday from a Michigan educator. It is a good one and this question keeps many people from using the most useful tool I have ever found for teaching! beckyloose writes: Editing I am a teacher in Northern Michigan and I am just learning about wikis. I have been studying your wonderful wiki page to learn more about it. It really seems like a wonderful tool, but I have a quesion that I'm sure you can help me with. If anyone can edit the wiki how do you prevent someone from going in there and changing or deleting all the hard work that has been done? Thank you for you help! Here is my response: brightideaguru writes: re: Editing Great question! This is a wiki that has members so only people who I have invited can edit. The only members of this wiki are my Westwood students! Although they could mess up each other's work and it has happened sometimes, if you go to t...

Secure your school server or wind up Googled? A school in Winston Salem, NC did not secure their server and as Google crawled it, it unwittingly posted the test scores and social security numbers of 619 students. I know that many schools like to host everything on their own servers (and have a static IP address) but this one reason that I have my firewall run all Internet activities and my server is denied access to the Internet. I would hate to have"accidents" like this happen. Myspace and College Admissions Amazingly, THERE IS A WAY to remove things from Google cache . And with the National Association for College Admissions's recent article on Myspace in College Admission , this will be a great thing for you to teach students to do after they clean up or delete their myspace accounts. This is yet another reason to unblock myspace from school at least temporarily. Advisors and teachers need to help seniors clean up their accounts and delete things that could be cons...

Recent research shows that teachers who “put their soul into what they are doing” are getting better responses from students ( Crabtree, 2004 ). Allison Rooney, in her article, What Students say about Teacher Quality , says: "students want teachers who care, who push them, who maintain a classroom that is conducive to learning, and who are sensitive to their individual needs as learners. " We must never fall so in love with gadgets that we forget that our first love should be our students. If a student doesn't have the teacher's heart, gadgets will only be a distraction. Admid the plethora of NECC postings, remember who this is about. I love gadgets more than most, but my greatest classroom tool for learning is my expectation, vigilance, and love of every student as a unique individual put here for a purpose. Technology is the pump on the conduit of information flow made by caring. Want to know more? Crabtree, S. (2004, June 4). Teachers who care get most from kid...