Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

It is very late and I've had a long day, however I want you to have a copy of the great presentation by Will Richardson today . He challenges teachers to look for ways to connect our students. This is quite appropriate for me in that tomorrow, my students have a great opportunity to interview a nanotechnology expert, Earl Boysen, author of Nanotechnology for Dummies and www.understandingnano.com - he is also a columnist for Nanotechnology . He is a fascinating person and I am very grateful for his willingness to share. We will record the discussion and I'll post it on my Cool Cat Teacher podcast this week. Why are we looking at nanotechnology? The reason that we are having this discussion is that our computer science book covers hardware very well, but has absolutely nothing on nanotechnology . Nanotech is an essential area of understanding for any classroom looking at science or technology and the impacts are going to be far reaching. So, I had my students elect a projec...

Some of you participating in the connectivism conference can go into the connectivism Moodle , however some of you haven't been able to participate since the conference is closed. I have been watching with interest the phenomenal discussion that Jason Hando started about bringing connectivism to the classroom. I'd like to share with you two comments that got me thinking tonight! Practical ways to facilitate connectivism in a school classroom? by Jason Hando - Friday, 2 February 2007, 12:19 PM I am interested in finding out practical ways to adopt connectivism in the classroom [particularly under 18 year old education]. I can imagine that incorporating global projects, where students collaborate with other schools and experts in subject areas, would be one way. Are there other ideas? Re: Practical ways to facilitate connectivism in a school classroom? by Peter Clitheroe - Friday, 2 February 2007, 12:28 PM I wonder whether there is some fundamental work to be done with l...

I am so fortunate that today my planning period allowed me to attend George Siemen's Connectivism online conference where 197 people from around the world listened and chatted through George's presentation about his connectivism theories and how they relate to education. I am one of the context filters for K12 education. I am reflecting on the moodle and on my blog here on the discussions and presentation today. Here are my primary thoughts from my notes on his presentation. George gave an overview of the connectivist theory. What I got out of the discussion was many other items of discussion: The infrastructure of dreams is growing up around our feet. Visionaries have been talking about what can be done and suddenly have woken up and realized it can be done today. The institutional level has not responded to the change in infrastructure. George talked about how business has changed (somewhat) but that education has not. I would argue that businesses have a litmus test th...

How do I write? I've been asked by Brian Grenier and Wes Fryer to share how I develop posts for my blog. They asked it to be succinct! ;-) Blogging is like performing music. No matter how pure and vivid a solitary note of music is, no musician would be asked to come to Carnegie Hall because he played one singular beautiful note! No, Musicians are honored for skillfully playing beautiful compositions -- for giving the audience an experience to remember . The great musicians play with technical precision, variety, purity, beauty, and passion -- that is what makes the chill bumps arise and tears flow. Likewise, I believe that a great blog has all of the aspects of a performance by a great musical virtuoso. Just like my picture at the left emerges not by looking at one character, but by looking at the entire piece together, I truly look at my blog as an entire composition with the individual posts only being notes! I compose my blog while focusing on these...

Tonight at 9 pm EST we have the TechPodzone guys on the WOW2 show at edtechtalk. It will be a fascinating discussion about the use of podcasting in the classroom but also they have started blogging within the past week and are seeing some amazing results. Hope you can join us. I've been listening to the recent TechPodZone show about their beginning use of blogs in a history classroom, IM speak, and other Web 2.0 topics. It is a great show! Here is the great quote that I love from Mike that his student said: "We're learning from each other and we don't really even need the teacher on this one."

While over at the reflective teacher , I perused the discourse between him/her? and Dana Huff about their project on the Holocaust. Here is the core of what they're planning, but the e-mails that he pasted verbatim are quite exciting to watch: My students could do email interviews with some of your students about their family members and family histories. Your students could share photos, letters, and any other information to make this real. We could run an online question-and-answer session about the Holocaust. The Holocaust specialists at your school could suggest a list of sites for us to visit, such as the USHMM and the Spielberg Shoah project, and anything that could make this experience more real for us. I’ve already had a couple of students working on a wiki for this project: http://hlc.wikispaces.com I know that there are many of you out there planning and working to "flatten" your classroom. I'd like to have a place where people can go to talk about them a...

Sometimes I need to be reminded. One of the most transformational books of my life is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People . I came across a website that summarizes the key points of the book and was struck (again) at how the principles are at play in my classroom every day. Take a look at the three fundamentals in his book: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People Don't criticize, condemn or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Arouse in the other person an eager want. I have to reflect on these. 1. Don't Criticize, condemn or complain. Face it, whiners are not inspirational. In fact, they are repulsive. I can just hear the teacher who bemoans her (or his) sorry state, "Oh, why don't the kids mind me. Why can't I get anything done? Oh, me, oh my! Waah Wahh Wahh!" Yes, it is tough being a teacher and sometimes the kids are tough. But I have found that "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!" S...