Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Today was the first day of having a virtual assistant (shout out to Karen) start helping me and I must admit although it was quite a tough day overall, it was so incredible to go in my inbox and have a nice little summary of the many emails that came into Cool Cat along with a tidy action list. Outsourcing is something that you can do and it can be affordable for you. Certainly some things aren't appropriate to have help on, but for me, it has already paid dividends on day 1.  We're still not "caught up" on my email and we're working through it, but it will happen. I think that this is something that we'll see more and I hope that we'll also see some sort of outsourcing firms that specialize in the needs of education along with meeting our higher standards of privacy requirements, etc. There are many things like updating the website, answering all the email that comes into the school and forwarding it to the right place, etc. that truthfu...

What is digital literacy? - Digi Teen This is such a great conversation about digital citizenship with Terry Freedman on the Ning and 158 commenters (mostly students.) Great reading. tags : education digital_literacy digiteen I lurk, therefore I am -- Federal Computer Week "> - Annotated This excellent article delves deeper than just the 1% of people who contribute active content, the 9% who contribute and 90% who supposedly just "lurk" to point out that an MIT student says that: "Upon further research I found, in an MIT study, a defense of lurking that was better than anything I could make up. The study found that active lurkers in an online community might constitute closer to 40 percent to 50 percent of members and, while these people might not contribute directly to the online forum, they contribute by taking some of the ideas from the specific commun...

Does anyone else find it ironic that when I follow this link that I cite in my highly trafficked post Making the Case for Cell Phones in School that it would take us to the Center for Digital Democracy and a page that is now firewalled?

We are sending this message out through our networks, but want to make sure that all of you who are collaborating on a global basis have this invitation to share your story.  This is the email we're sending out today. Consider this an invitation to tell your story!  Thank you! **************************************** Hi everyone! We're so excited to be publishing a book with Pearson Publishing teaching how to connect classrooms on a global basis and we want your stories! Please share your story of collaboration by emailing it to story@flatclassroombook.com !  If your story is selected, we will email you with a permission form and confirmation of the text selected for the book (whether it has been edited or not!) Has global collaboration changed your view of the world? Improved some area of your life? Established friendships that you still maintain? Was it a positive experience? Negative? What lesson did you learn from the project? Please share -- we want ...

Programs for Educators Resources and Curriculum for Teachers Common Sense media has acquired CyberSmart curriculum. tags : education digitalcitizenship curriculum Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Image by kharied via Flickr "H--o---oooooo---pe!  Where are you?" I called as I looked in my desk drawer, under the manuscript sitting on my desk, between the books I'm studying to teach in a few weeks. "Hope. Are you in there?" As I looked in the kitchen sink, among the laundry around my recliner.  I see a lot of work.  A lot of signs of life in these places, but no hope. "Hope? Where have you gone?" I said as I booted up my computer and searched the Internet. Maybe I should just stop looking for her.  I'm so tired and have been working so unbelievably hard this summer. My shoulders sagged as I went to preplanning and worked through my days.  She wasn't here either.  Hope must be gone. The bell rang and students filed into my room for the first day, looking me in the eye with eager anticipation. It was then that I saw her reflection in the pupils. The eyes of my students reflected her so that I was almost blinded like a spotlight...

About Ning - Pricing Plans Final ning pricing plans. Make your decision. tags : education ning NASA - Moonbase Alpha Game NASA's MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) has been released and has tons of uses in science. This is perhaps the first of some really amazing online roleplaying games for STEM and I believe we will have more! So very cool. Please let me know if you play it and any information on it. tags : education learning mmorpg nasa science science_teacher Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.