Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Social Media saving lives – two words at the time | UNSPOKEN ~ Social Media I am asking everyone to read this post by my new friend Jure Klepic. This is what we're doing with the #choose2matter campaign. PLEASE read, understand, and watch. I must say that Jure took 5 minutes to answer a few questions for me about social media and helped me profoundly. It is hard to fathom that before he watched Angela's talk that he wondered if he mattered. He's talented, smart, and seems to have the world at his feet. You never know who feels like they don't matter. As a teacher, this is your job - #choose2matter don't just settle to show up. Let's be more and do more for all the Christopher and Jure's out there. tags: education news choose2matter youmatter socialmedia Digita...

Jim Courier of the United States wipes sweat away from his eyes with a towel during a Men's Singles match at the U.S.Open Tennis Championship on 6th September 1995 at the USTA National Tennis Center in the Flushing neighbourhood of Queens in New York, United States. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife ) A is for Attitude In an interview last week, someone asked me about the last thing that made me laugh. I collect sayings. I love them. For example, the Dukes of Hazzard 's Roscoe P. Coletrain gave me: "He's fightin' like the third monkey on Noah's gang plank." I often use that one to talk about a desperate situation where I'm struggling to hang on. When students are whining, I also have: "Call the Waaaambulance." or "Call 9 waa waa" While not all times and places are right for these comments, I have a sign in my room that says "no whining." If it is whining - even if I'm doing it, I'll say, ...

Flattening the classroom is removing the classroom walls as students connect outside the classroom to authentically co-create with a variety of people. As co-founder of Flat Classroom Projects , we have students from kindergarten to college connecting with one another daily as they co-create and work together. Students are the greatest textbook ever written for each other. The Flat Classroom doesn’t talk to the world or at the world but becomes project based with teachers and other students around the world as co-creators and travelers on the journey of learning. Some think flattening the classroom is just about connecting with other countries. This is overly simplistic. While it is an exciting part of flattening the classroom, there’s more.  Julie Lindsay , co-founder of Flat Classroom Projects, and I think there are five areas of connection planning: information, location, generation, communication and time. Information Traditionally the textbook and teacher were the two ...

Free Technology for Teachers: A Quick Start Guide for Using YouTube's Editing Tools Another cool tutorial by Richard Byrne over at Free Tech for Teachers, a website I highly recommend. tags: education news A running theme that the only thing that matters is test scores | Dangerously Irrelevant If it is the right thing to do , it doesn't matter. It only matters if it can be linked to test scores. I find this kind of thinking offensive and ridiculous. As the southern farmer down the street would say "that's bass ackwards." This article turns my stomach.I tags: education edreforrm news tumblr HASTAC Wins NSF Grant to Study Its Own Social Networ...

Conversation around the connected educator month has largely been that it is the same educators connecting. How can we get more people connecting? Let's show them how, specifically, how they can connect. The Flat Classroom Projects and Taking IT Global are sponsored a free and open "Connected Educator Challenge" modeled after the K12 Online Wiki Challenge of 2006 where Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis first met and founded their Flat Classroom projects. See our Wiki:  http://connectededucators.wikispaces.com/Home  (to sign up and read what has been written.) Note: IF you're an organization that connects people and you want to invite your members to participate and help write this wiki book, then let us know and we can co-list you as a sponsor. We want to include everybody in creating a great free resource to help people to connect, so when they are ready, they can get started.   We'll also work on sharing best practices in writing wikis and collabo...

  When educator Yvonne Fojtasek at Alvin Dunn Elementary in San Marcos, California emailed me her "Big Three" after ISTE 12 this year, I asked if she'd share her plans with the world. This one transformational practice has changed my life and can change yours. I have a list of the next 3 things I want to do after every conference and on an ongoing basis. What are your "big 3?" Feel free to email them to me at vicki at coolcatteacher dot com. You might just be next.  "We can't have a world-class education without the world",  began Vicki Davis at her presentation on the Wonderful World of Wikis at ISTE 2012 in San Diego, California. She had me hooked. This was my very first time attending ISTE, and I was eager to learn as much as possible about providing a world class education for the students I serve in the San Marcos Unified School District in San Diego County, California. I was looking forward to taking my first steps in establishing...

Making the Grade: When Do Kids Deserve A's? Are we putting too many non-content related grades in our marking systems that are causing disorganized children to think they aren't college material and to cause entitlement among those who do homework and turn things in thinking that just because they work hard that they deserve a good grade? This family circle article coupled with some of the entitlement research has me thinking. Read: Making the Grade: When Do Kids Deserve A's It is also an argument for standards based assessment. Take a read.  tags: education news research Kinect in the classroom There are some fascinating things you can do with Kinect in the classroom. You can download these files and hook up a Kinect to your computer to allow motion capture (against a greenscreen), painting with gestures, and all kinds of things. There are people using kinect in powerful ways with special need...