Cool Cat Teacher Blog

WaterShed Moment in the History of Online Safety Education

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:51:46 PST

In Larry Magid's Brief, Poingnant Overview of the recent third annual conference of the Family Online Safety Institute, he called it a "WaterShed Moment int he History of Online Safety Education" I felt buoying hope. Below are the extracted annotations from his article from me but I'd like to add something that I just emailed to Larry.

Wow, Larry. Just a note that your current article in the San Jose Mercury News is SPOT ON - http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13723472?nclick_check=1

We've been seeing this in our Digiteen projects where the kids determine their own ACTION project to teach digital citizenship to the audience of their choice. (You can see this year's action projects forming here - http://digiteen09-3.flatclassroomproject.org/Westwood+-+USA -- they are right now in progress.) The kids research digital citizenship w/ partners around the world and self form teams.

One of the coolest is my Super Social Safety Team (http://supersocialsafety.blogspot.com and http://www.twitter.com/socialsafety ) they are testing programs for kids 8-12 and upset that many sites are being marketed that are irresponsible.

Just wanted to reach out and say YES!! There are schools using social media like Nings and wikis and Twitter and some ARE receiving erate funding -- eRate funding has long been an EXCUSE to do nothing and the blocking has gotten ridiculous with a lot of public schools not even being able to upload a video for Obama's youtube contest.

I hope that people are reading, but right now with budget cuts, outsourcing of filtration, and the typical struggle to keep your head above water mentality many of us have right now - I hope that wise people become progressive about these things and realize that the greatest danger is the person who picks up the kid in the car every day - not some random stranger who might see a kids picture on the Internet. (Although kids SHOULD be educated about that.) Personally, I think Digital Citizenship encompasses more than just safety and that all kids of all ages should be included. But as my ninth graders say, they are often best qualified (with guidance) to create compelling educational lessons for younger kids on safety.

Magid: Treating kids on the Web in a new way - San Jose Mercury News

a watershed moment in the 16-year history of online safety education.
in that young people were viewed less as potential victims of online crimes and more as participants in a global online community.
the "predator panic" that was rampant a few years ago has largely been put to rest as safety experts and law enforcement studies from the Crimes Against Children Research Center and elsewhere show that, statistically, the odds of a prepubescent child being sexually molested by an
online stranger is virtually zero and the odds of it happening to a teenager are very low, especially when compared with children who are harmed by family members and others they know from the real world.
the culprit is far more likely to be a fellow young person.
Kids are affected by their own behavior ranging from posting pictures or comments online that could come to haunt them later to "sexting," sending nude or nearly nude pictures of themselves to others.
a few misguided ones have used these laws against children.
others continue to perpetuate myths about Internet dangers.
"one size doesn't fit all.
There was a lot of discussion about the lack of interactive social media in schools.

Blessings and Stressings: Reflections from Home

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:16:14 PST

A Break from Traveling
Since July I gave myself five months off from travel. There were simply some things to attend to. My youngest son needed to be tested in more detail (he has dyslexia and a form of ADHD) and my older two - one in high school and one in middle school needed a chauffeur and a cook each night. Life begins at home and if I should raise children who do not contribute to this world in a positive way then no matter what else I do, in my own mind, I'd be a failure.

Also, we have had the Eracism project to kick off and have been struggling and trying to raise money for the Flat Classroom conference in Mumbai, India still need about ($20K to do a few things we feel like we need) as well as other upcoming projects. I picked up running the week after NECC (using the amazing Couch to 5K app on my itouch) and have lost another 10 pounds since then and ran my first 5K about four weeks a go (this weekend I run another.) I'm totally addicted to running and I enrolled my youngest son in Tae Kwon Do two days a week while my husband and I run-- he has lost weight and my husband and I have as well and he has his first testing Saturday.

Opportunities and Challenges
Additionally, I've had several book offers but also have been strongly considering self publishing as well. I've had to enmesh myself with the legalities of Intellectual Property with some contracts coming my way that literally would have taken Flat Classroom^TM from Julie and I, should we not have been savvy and alert. It is upsetting but the "nature of the beast," I guess.

Kim Caise has been hired by Elluminate to help Julie and I 20 hours a week with the tremendous growing Flat Classroom^TM projects which we are struggling to keep free, doling out money from our pockets at this point a little too often. We've also got some proposals out to work with some groups to take some Digital Citizenship education resources out further to others with the Digiteen model.

Computer Lab is Dying
Meanwhile, I am teaching in a 5 year old computer lab with computers dying on me and no money to replace them and working on grants to try to raise the $60,000 I need for upgrades at the school and to just keep my SANITY! Our school is actually growing (surprising) and my classes are bigger than ever and now EVERY class has a major global collaborative piece in it.

Needless to say, it has been busy, but a different kind of busy. I've really had the time in the classroom I needed to innovate and help my students get grounded before I take off to speak in New York in January, keynoting TICAL in Little Rock, Arkansas in February, co-leading Flat Classroom Strand at ASB Unplugged in February 2010, keynoting MACUL in Michigan in March, my students and I will be leading a leadership workshop for librarians at Valdosta State College in March, and keynoting the TNT Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota in May and of course ISTE 2010 in Denver, CO. Talking with a few schools about the summer and organizations about next year and I may have a few spots that will come available in April/May. (If you want to talk about what you're doing, just email me to see if we can work it out.)

{Oh, and tomorrow night, November 12 at 7pm EST, I'll be presenting online about Differentiated Instruction and Global Collaboration as part of George Siemen's Online Learning PD Activities (he has some amazing presentations lined up tomorrow.)}

I've got a lot on my to-do list - updating my websites, creating a new website for me, a new elementary science Flat Classroom^TM project, and lots of other things needing handling.Really it is quite overwhelming. K12 online 2009 presentations (we wrote 3 proposals hoping for 1-2 acceptances and then learned they likely accepted everyone -- well, if they're going to do that, I'm NOT going to do that again and submit one!!)

Halfway Between Hyperventilation and Blackout
Although right now I'm in a break from the conference thing, my life does seem about halfway between hyperventilation and a blackout. Picking up kids and running places - long late night trips home from ballgames and shopping for a pageant dress for my 6 foot size 4 daughter! These are the things of life and they are great but it is quite fraying on my sanity! My husband has had to downsize his department from over 120 staff to around 30 and it has been hard on him. (They are dependent on automotive work.)

You know, it is easy to look at someone's life and think they have it easier or better. My husband got a nice handy little PAY CUT which was unannounced along with all the other employees of his company, so we've had to do a huge share of belt-tightening like many of you.

So, this morning when I woke up feeling pretty rough and knew that I had another full day of Justin Reich, wiki uber-researcher (and now a good friend) observing my classes today, this was the only thing I could tweet:

Overcoming hardship is only glamorous in the movies made years after the tears and sweat have evaporated.
http://twitter.com/coolcatteacher/status/5616541396

Guess I'm sharing all this to bring those of you who are my friends out there or who somehow think that other people have it easy in some way that, it is rough all over! One of my "pet peeves" is when someone calls me a "rock star." At first, it was cool, but somewhere while running around the track these past months, I realized that I don't want to be anybody like that -- (I mean who wants to be a super popular, lack of privacy alcoholic drug addicted sex addicted mega-millionaire anyway if we play on all those stereotypes.)

I'd really rather be a normal person out here who encourages other normal people to strive to be excellent in their profession of loving and educating this amazing generation of students in our classrooms. Truly, the lowest points of being able to help anyone are when I started believing that stuff and that somehow the fact that some really cool people read my blog that it made me right all the time.

My dear friend, Terry Freedman always makes me laugh when he says "I'm quite proud of my humility." Well, it isn't about being humble - you can be confident without being arrogant. To me, it is about being usable and relevant - usable to be used to help others achieve and do and learn more and relevant so that perhaps some of you can identify with this woman who put her keys in the refrigerator yesterday but still somehow manages to educate her students well.

Pie Day
This past Sunday was "pie day" in my house - the self-proclaimed day after Fall Festival when everyone is allowed to eat any homemade pie or cake that they won at the Fall Festival the night before. Well, we won 12 pies and 3 cakes!! Not kidding! It was too much -- so I froze some of them for later. If we'd gotten in to all those pies, it would NOT have been pleasant and we would have ended up wasting some of it. Well, in my life I sort of feel like I felt when I looked at all those pies on my table Saturday night - that if I try to take it all on it is too much - -that I'm outmatched and am not up to the task.

So, I ramble up to a couple of points here:

If we really look at our lives, we are all blessed in many ways: family, friends, children, rewarding careers.
If we really look at our lives, sometimes the blessings are also stressings: family, friends, children, careers.
The Blessings and Stressings are Part of Life: Get Over It, Get Up, Get Going and sometimes Get a Nap!

Today, when my students in the Arab Israeli Conflict Simulation where sharing the most important things that they had learned, one of the students playing Barak Obama said,

"I've learned that these things take time and all these other world leaders want results NOW but it just takes time to work these things out. Sometimes freaking out makes the situation much worse - you basically have two choices - blow everyone up and make a mess or take your time and work it out and improve things for everyone."

OK, so he said it - but I listened for my own personal life. If I freak out, it makes the situation worse. If I blow up -- it makes a mess. But if I just take my time, plod ahead and do my best, I can improve things continually for everyone: my family, friends, children, and career.

Blessings and Stressings
These Blessings and Stressings are part of the fabric of life and if you haven't noticed we're all having to cut budgets, cut out expenses, get creative, and keep our chins up. (Yes, I said chins! ;-)

I don't know about you - I've got a life to live here and why on earth am I going to ruin it whining and having a pity party about any of my struggles - there is always someone with more and always someone with less. I am thankful I do have a God to take these worries to each morning to help me through them. Who am I to think that somehow I "deserve" to live in the best time in history? (As if there were a best time.)

Did our forbears deserve to live through the great depression and 2 world wars?

There is more than enough hard work to go around but if I 've got to do it anyway, golly pete, I'm not going to fuss about it.

You know, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill and Ghandi were not born into happy go-lucky fun times when everyone could afford a vacation, they were great because they had great leadership, insight, and vision and they were able to inspire people who would have been hopeless otherwise.

They were able to somehow stand up against the tides of dissent and cesspools of despair to churn up their own tidal wave of change that rocked the shores of society!

This is a time of great change for all of us. If you look at when societies struggle, it is when they somehow think that money can buy anything worth having. Money CANNOT buy as good of an education as having an involved caring parent and teacher and hard working administrators. Money CANNOT pull a nation or world out of economic depression or recession-- only hard work and wise counsel.

The problem with many of us is that we'd rather watch TV for four hours a night than to spend that time with our kids or helping them do homework. WE don't complain about the kid who plays on the Xbox for 20 hours a week, but God forbid the teacher send home 30 minutes at night! If you asked us to restrict kids to 30 minutes of TV a day, we'd balk. Where are our priorities?

I hope that we will all take a look at what is happening and realize that we can't spend money we don't have, that we have to choose how to spend our time and not allow it to go down the drain of mindless activity and that no matter our generation or the strife of our societies that we can, my friends, choose our attitude.

Thank you for allowing me to ramble. I'm always nervous with such a long, stream of consciousness post that I'll have mistyped or said something wrong here -- "In many words is folly" and the more I write the more likely I'll mess up by mispeaking or writing.

My Heart ForYou
However, my heart for you, my friends out there, teachers, educators, and technology buffs is one of wanting to encourage you whereever you are, whatever you're going through to get up, smile at the sun (or the Son as in my case), enjoy the snow on your eyelashes or fragrance wafting towards your nostrils and:

see the blessings around and have a good attitude towards the stressings that are also inherent in life today.

Keep the faith. Don't quit and remember, as my Granny always said,

"Sometimes you gotta let the rough end drag and it is OK!"

The Conference for Educators and Students to Change Your Life

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:32:42 PST

Last year, we had our first Flat Classroom conference in Doha, Qatar during which the students invented global collaborative projects that they believed would improve a social issue. Out of that conference, the students invented and voted the Eracism Project as their winner, a project to hold weekly debates around creating an understanding of race and culture. The first week into Eracism, I'll say the student vision was amazing and as teachers we are so excited about what we see with the potential for "simulated sychronous" environments to bridge gaps.

Now, Julie Lindsay and I are working diligently on the next Flat Classroom Conference, which we are calling a "mini-conference" because it is being held as part of ASB Unplugged in Mumbai India this upcoming February. We are bringing the same project based learning environment along with incorporating adult educators - not as "teachers" but as co-participants and equals in the process of not only understanding technology but in improving the world at large.

Students will again be assigned a diverse group of students (last year in a group of four each student was from a different country) to use leading social technology tools to design the future of how students can use these tools to improve our world. Most likely we will be settling on an environmental theme this year and will let you know in the upcoming month.

But the bottom line is this - we are making sure that you know that this conference in Mumbai is here for those who want their students and teachers to improve and change the world. Through partnership with ASB Unplugged, we've worked to make 50 student scholarships available for housing and attending the conference and although the scholarships are first issued to students from schools who have participated in a Flat Classroom project (Flat Classroom, Digiteen, Horizon, NetGenEd, and Eracism see http://www.flatclassroomproject.org for information on these projects.) we are opening up applications from any school.

If you want to view what happened last year in Doha Qatar, take a look at the powerful documentary about the conference. We also are talking to some sponsors at this time not only for February 2010 but also for February 2011, which is at a location that will be announced soon. We are talking to companies who believe in harnessing the power of social media and the engagement of students from around the world to improve our world through global collaboration in education. We have tough problems to solve and it is important to engage our students in working together towards improving our world!

Julie and I are completely passionate and dedicated to making participation in our projects and conferences as affordable as possible and thus far have not charged one dime to participate in any of our projects and have scholarshiped students to these conferences with them only having to raise airfare and incidentals, but we are at the point that it just cannot be done alone. We need your help!

So, spread the word - we're looking for at least 20 more students and their teachers to come to this amazing conference (most schools send about 4 students and 1-2 teachers) and also for sponsors who believe in this vision or who just want to understand how a PBL conference integrated educators and students into a meaningful, life changing experience is done.

How can you help?

Share this with your school and ask them to get involved in this grassroots movement to connect students in powerful, global ways.
Share the conference information - http://flatclassroomconference.wikispaces.com
Consider attending ASB Unplugged or our Flat Classroom Conference Strand as an educator
Tweet information out.
Look for information about virtual participation.
Consider donating to help some at a local school pay for airfare. (Contact your local school directly as we are not taking donations at this time through us.)

We simply would not be doing these things without YOU. My gratitude extends to you and all of those who have supported Flat Classroom projects with their time, volunteer efforts, and wisdom. This sort of open-collaobration represents where we are heading and our minds and hearts are simply spinning with the huge demand and desire to bring this to so many schools.

Thank you again for sharing this with those who are interested. Here are the important links:

Flat Classroom Conference Wiki - http://flatclassroomconference.wikispaces.com/
ASB Unplugged Website - http://www.asbindia.info:8081/drupal/ASB_Un-plugged/?q=node/36
School Scholarship Request form (for those wanting to send students) - https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en_GB&formkey=cnFFTnZUVjEweENhbTI0Mmw4VTJUSlE6MA..

Press Release about the conference

FLAT CLASSROOM WORKSHOP AT ASB UN-PLUGGED
Details for those planning to attend

Flat Classroom Workshop at ASB Unplugged Overview

The American School of Bombay and ASB Unplugged are proud to be the host of the Flat Classroom Workshop (and mini-Conference), February 24-27, 2010 in Mumbai, India. Flat Classroom Projects have joined with ASB Unplugged, a conference organized in collaboration with the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation, the Near East/ South Asia Center of Overseas Schools (NESA), and the Laptop Institute. The Flat Classroom Workshop Strand will include a unique, project based learning approach allowing participants to use cutting edge technology tools AND interactions with educators on the leadership strand to redefine learning while involving students in the process.

Co-founders of the Flat Classroom Project , Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay, have joined forces with colleagues and supporters from around the world to provide another opportunity for a face-to-face, real-time gathering. The aim of getting together in the one place is to fully extend and foster connections and collaborations that will ultimately improve classroom practice and pedagogical approach using technology as part of a global flat classroom.

In an ever-changing world the impact of the Internet, in particular Web 2.0 tools, has been so significant it has changed the way students and teachers can interact and learn. There are opportunities for different learning relationships and for multi-modal outcomes using multimedia and online tools. The conference will provide opportunities for leaders in education, classroom teachers and administrators as well as students to learn with and from each other in a 'flat classroom' model. It is envisaged the workshop experience will culminate in actions that are then shared around the world and sustained by continued projects based on community and curriculum needs.

What is the Flat Classroom Workshop?

The aim of the workshop is to bring together geographically dispersed participants with a view to sharing ideas, using mobile computing, learning about Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools in a flattened world, and working on a project theme that can be transplanted back into their home school. The selected theme will inspire unity and action as well as fostering continued connections after the event in Mumbai. It is envisaged this will improve global understanding and cement friendships for ongoing collaborations. It is also envisaged that this will provide an opportunity for students and teachers together to 'create the future' through exploration of a global or social issue and developing an 'action' plan to work globally to overcome this

Who Should Attend?

The workshop is aimed at Middle and High school students. It is envisioned that past and present participants in Flat Classroom Projects and previous workshops projects will be interested in coming as well as classrooms who are wanting to have a 'Flat Classroom' experience and take the ideals and skills back to their own schools. Each participating school is encouraged to register up to 4 students, and if interested, 2 teachers. Workshop teams will be made up of participants from different schools and countries.

What will you do?

An essential element of the workshop is to join students (and teachers) together in a constructivist learning environment, and by using 'flat classroom' tools, work through a project-based, action-oriented learning workshop. Skill development in Web 2.0 and multimedia tools along with enhanced cultural understanding and digital citizenship support the pedagogical approach to collaborative learning in a digital world. The skills and tools will provide the scaffolding for developing ideas and putting into place actions that could make a difference to the world. We invite you to browse the recent Flat Classroom Workshop in Hong Kong wiki to see what we did there. All conferences and workshops connect via the Flat Classroom Conference Ning

Flat Classroom Conference
Flat Classroom Conference, held in Qatar, January 2009, brought more than 150 education leaders, teachers and students together to Qatar to envision the future of education. Students and teachers from very diverse backgrounds such as Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United States, China, Australia, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and beyond came to the Leadership Workshop and Student Summit. The student videos and reflections on the conference Ning show the positive affect that the conference had on reducing stereotypes, not only of the Middle East, but of one another.
This conference was not a lecture-based conference but primarily a project-based conference using the latest in educational research in project based learning to rework how content is delivered in a conference format. Using small teams, group presentations, and multiple interactions between students and educators, a rich, interactive environment evolved. Multimedia was a focus, with students exploring topics and creating rich presentations. Many presenters, educators, and students have expressed their favorable opinion in their post-conference reflections of the need to deploy this method of improving education on a global basis.

What is the Flat Classroom Project?
Info from the ABOUT wiki found at http://www.flatclassroomproject.org/About

The Flat Classroom project is a ground breaking, internationally recognized project which combines hundreds of students from various cultures, countries, and backgrounds into a meaningful collaborative writing and digital storytelling project to study the trends in information technology. After the initial project won multiple international awards and was included in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat v.3, it has been remixed into 11 different projects following the same model. These projects have joined together almost 2,000 students from more than 20 countries and is widely considered a best-practice for as a holistic and constructivist educational approach that creates students who are competitive and globally minded.
The project was co-founded by Vicki Davis http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ (Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay http://123elearning.blogspot.com/ (Beijing (BISS) International School) in 2006 when they were located literally around the world from one another. This project uses a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools including wikis, educational (social) networks, cross-timezone calendaring, collaborative digital storytelling and publishing to "flatten" or lower the classroom walls to join two or more classes virtually to become one large classroom.
A little more about the projects:
The current projects cover the following topics:

Flat Classroom Project - The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman. Students collaborate on a wiki then produce an individual multimedia piece in response to their topic. A clip in this piece is 'outsourced' to a team member in another classroom, so not only do students study the flatteners as discussed by Friedman, they use them in the project.

As a sister to the Flat Classroom Project the Horizon Project, as mentioned in Don Tapscott's recent book, Grown Up Digital now renamed as the Net Generation Education project and run in collaboration with Tapscott himself, also lowers or 'flattens' the classroom walls by emphasizing connection, communication, collaboration and creativity as well as higher-order thinking skills and problem solving. This project is based on the Horizon Report released annually by New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiate that outlines 6 trends they believe will be impacting college and university campuses within the next five years.

A further imitative recently is the Digiteen Project which has linked classrooms of middle school students from Australia, Canada, USA, Spain and Qatar with the aim of promoting better online citizenship through research and discussion and culminates in each school taking action within their own community to promote this.

In 2009, the Digiteen and NetGenEd projects are adding a virtual component in OpenSim and have gridizenship added as a component of digital citizenship in their work. In addition the new project 'Eracism' will provide an opportunity for global debate around he need to 'erase racism'.

Registration Details

Our aim is to encourage participants from around the world to attend the Flat Classroom Workshop and wish to support this by providing accommodation and most expenses for students, including meals and sight-seeing, while in Mumbai in the form of a 'scholarship'. Students and teachers who have been past or current participants in the Flat Classroom Project or at recent Flat Classroom Workshops will be given priority however we strongly encourage all interested applicants.

Interested applicants are requested to complete this online form to register and to be considered for scholarship benefits.
Application deadline has been extended.
Successful applicants will be notified by November, 2009

More information is available from flatclassroomproject@gmail.com

Daily Spotlight on Education 11/07/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:30:05 PST

Innovative Learning - Free Newsletter Fall 2009
This phenomenal special interest group of ISTE has a great quarterly newsletter which is really the best of innovative learning in all of education. On pages 15-17 there are three pages of an article from two of my students and I about teaching in a virtual world including my "quick tricks for teaching in a virtual world." Print this, share it, and learn - so many great things in this newsletter!
tags: education, opensim, reactiongrid, ipod, iphone, iste, learning, edu_news, edu_trends
TeachingWithContests.com
This blog shares contests to use and share with your classroom.
tags: education, learning, contests

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Spotlight on Education 11/05/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:30:04 PST

TICAL - Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership
Will be speaking in Arkansas on February 17th at their TICAL conference. I'm so excited! This is information if you are in the area so that you may plan to attend. If you do, please plan to say "hi" - it really means a lot to meet the people from cyberworld, I guess it makes it all more "real."
tags: education, coolcatteacher, inthenews
NetSmartzKids: Tunes
Use Clicky's Raps to teach your kids Internet safety. Lisa Durff recommended this site on Twitter. Cool tool.
tags: education, digitalcitizenship, digiteen

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Spotlight on Education 11/04/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:30:04 PST

Social networks and kids: How young is too young? - CNN.com
Important article to read about children of all ages creating profiles. I believe this supports our driving need to incorporate instruction and discussion on this topic in schools.
tags: education, learning, web2, digiteen, safety, digitalcitizenship
Crowdsourcing or Loudsourcing? | ISTE Connects - Educational Technology
Blogged my thoughts on crowdsourcing the ISTE keynote this year.
tags: education, iste, crowdsourcing, edu_news
Findings - Ethnographic Study Looks at Gossip in the Workplace - NYTimes.com
Office gossip (this study on an elementary school and their gossip against a principal) hurts EVERYONE including your school and in this case, test scores declined. Remember that when you gossip, you also hurt yourself and if you didn't already know this, take a read here about office gossip and how to intervene and stop it.
tags: education, learning, gossip, psychology, edu_news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Get some Java and Spend some Time with Jane in Java

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:32:00 PDT

Educators who share and really understand the transformative power of teaching and connecting are inspirations! They can be halfway across the world and their energy and zest for living and learning can be felt like the sun lights planet earth.

So, a big shout of Thank you to my friend Julie Lindsay for finding Jane Ross (a/k/a Jane in Java) in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janeinjava
Blog: 1:1 in Practice at Sinarmas World Academy - http://1to1inpractice.blogspot.com/

This is seriously one of the most choc full, amazing blogs I've seen in ages. From her amazing student presentations at the mall to her really cool ebook on Moviemaking with kids, to first grade keynotes about what they eat for lunch (as part of the playnormous competition going on now)- the work they are doing will amaze you!

Maybe what some people need here in the USA (and other countries who have rested on their laurels for so long) is to spend a little time with a cup 'o Java with Jane in Java to CAFFEINATE their desire to progress and move ahead.

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/29/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:30:04 PDT

flatclassroom09-3 - Workflow Software - Discussion - Teacher Feedback from Mrs. Davis
This is an example of how I used Diigo to create an annotated link to give feedback on a wiki on Flat Classroom. I love using Diigo for giving wiki feedback because I can mark up the page. I like ot share them through groups that are private with my students and I and the annotated link feature is one of the best ways to do this.
tags: flatclassroom, diigo, wiki, teaching, education, edu_trends, bestpractices

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Twitter is a Tool not a Panacea

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:28:00 PDT

Who on earth would research TWITTER?

Just read an article over on Education and Tech entitled There is Not Research About Twitter ( a response to EdWeeks Article about Twitter in the Classroom.)

"There is not research but as more and more teachers start using Twitter in a variety of classroom projects, it seems the practice will be the only empirical foundation to let children get away with their multitasking and huge capacity to use social media tools like Twitter."

I don't know where Milton has his facts about teachers using twitter in a lot of classroom projects, but I don't see it. I see teachers using it to connect and create projects - USUALLY it is the teacher tweeting something out to get a response. I see a very very small few teachers like me using Twitter to allow their students to connect to experts in their field and each other as well as to understand online leadership and Web 2.0 networking. (I am the exception except for the profs doing this at the college level.) But as for wide uses of Twitter in the classroom - where is it? We connect each other but is it in the lesson plans... I don't think so. The stereotyping of students here and that somehow "letting students get away with multitasking" I find insulting to the teachers I know who use Web 2 in the classroom. It is so not about "letting them get away" with something but more about getting learning into their brains.

Here is my response.

Just one thought here. To me, yes, there is something to be said ABOUT The tools but to point to the tool itself as needing research, to me is quite missing the point.

It is HOW the tool is used. For example, a hammer is quite useful and essential for building a house but if I use it to hammer in all of the screws the house will fall down.

Just as blogs and wikis are being seen as tools that can be used, the question here is NOT about twitter but the underlying technology of microblogging. If you look at Edmodo and Youth Voices and how they are using microblogging, it is quite useful.

Using ticket to leave in the classroom is one of the best researched tools out there (asking students to answer a critical question before leaving class.) If this practice is done on paper or tweeted should be irrelevant - it is the practice that counts.

Twitter is certainly NOT appropriate in many cases but it DOES, however, network the teachers to help us put together projects and things in the classroom for the students. There are cases where it CAN be used with some older students but really, an Edmodo or other microblogging site like Plurk may be better suited in some instances.

This is SOOOO not about Twitter and it shouldn't be. When researchers researched search engines did it focus around Google or around search engines?

Microblogging is the underlying trend and if it is something to be used in the classroom, the appropriate site should be selected based upon the PURPOSE of what they are doing, the local legal and school policies for safety and the specific objective of what they are trying to teach.

Twitter is 140 characters for goodness sakes it is good for something but certainly is only a small subset of what we use the Internet for.

I had a really good teacher one time who I recall saying. "I will do whatever it takes to teach, even if it includes dancing on my desk." If it makes sense to me and it is a tool I can use, I'm going to use it and I hope that researchers are wise enough not to get trapped into thinking a company IS a technology it represents.

Google has rocked,but now a third of my students prefer Bing. Second Life was cool but now OpenSim and ReactionGrid are where we have gone.

It is about how we use the tools! I'd like to pull out a quote that I left on the article from edweek where a commenter had said that the world "is becoming STUPID" about the fact that anyone would use Twitter in the classroom for anything.

"I use twitter for my classes all of the time and my students even use twitter. It is very useful. For example, if they are reading an author who is living, they can follow the author and ask questions and even get a response. Or, when we are using Reactiongrid and we have a question, the students can tweet the founders directly. Like anything it can have good or bad uses - distractions and also positives.

Twitter like all of these other items is just a conduit and certainly as we know about conduits they pretty much are a channel for whatever the humans put into them - whether a piece of PVC pipe carries the chocolate in a chocolate fountain or raw sewage - it isn't about the pipe but about how the pipe is USED. It is the same thing with Twitter, Facebook or any other tool: it is all in the use.

Some people, like James here, think it is dumb to use Twitter in this way - well he just uses his conduit differently but truly there are as many uses for twitter as there are for the telephone!"

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/28/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:30:04 PDT

How I create and publish podcasts » Moving at the Speed of Creativity
If you want to know how one of the pro's makes and publishes podcasts, here is Wesley Fryer's how to - a must read for anyone working in this area of technology.
tags: education, podcast, web2.0, worldonline, edu_news, professionaldevelopment, web2, bestpractices
Pixton™ - Comic Strip Creator - Make Your Own Web Comics Online
Another Comic location. This is supposed to have animated comics also as part of this.
tags: education, learning, comic, web2.0, www_world
Comicbrush
New comic making web app which also has an i-pod compatible app. This lets you combine drawings, photos, and ready to use artwork to create caricatures. This is great. You can also mash up regular backgrounds with caricatures in the foreground.
tags: education, comic, web2.0, worldonline, edu_newapp, curriculum
TLC = Tech + Library + Classroom: Wordle and Books = Groovy Stuff!
Love how Tara in Bangkok, Thailand used Wordle to introduce books and then mashed up the words in voicethread. What a fascinatingly creative way to use these tools!
tags: education, tools, web2.0, www_world

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Net Neutrality: Without it we have MOUNTAINS amidst the FLATNESS

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:07:35 PDT

Note: I would like to give you a concrete example. Surely, there are much bigger issues with net neutrality than just some school project that has heretofore touched only relatively few schools at this time. It helps to understand examples, so here it is.

So, if you're wondering what net Neutrality means, it means that if two teachers who are across the world from each other want to create projects using free tools and let other teachers participate FOR FREE without any cost whatsoever for their school that many people will not have access to that. It means barriers for this.

There are already organizations out there charging for participation in their projects and who knows at some point we may have to have that model just to keep things going - but our hope and dream is to keep this thing going and get enough money generated on the side and enough supporters (like Elluminate) who will help us with administrative costs so that schools that choose to collaborate with other schools can have a high quality, free, open project to participate in with their students that aim to produce students who are educated at the highest level as it relates to Information Technology and the current trends.

Whether you're talking Flat Classroom, Digiteen, or Eracism or any of the other future projects we're talking about -- if for some reason we had to PAY to be accessible on certain networks these things couldn't be free. (i.e. if a particular project made money off schools and took part of that money to pay an Internet company to allow their project through and block free projects in competition then schools wouldn't be able to participate or have the option to go with the free project. Thus, through blocking, those free projects would in essence be limited to participation in areas that allowed the project through the firewall.)

How could we share? How could we invite? How could we include?

I'm a capitalist but as a capitalist I believe in COMPETITION. And competition means that we should have access to THE Internet, the true Internet to mashup and work with as we need to.

It means that open models should be given a chance to evolve into something more substantial - if that is their path to trod.

It is hard enough to collaborate globally but with something like this passed, we will have even more complex issues. Right now, US Public schools can be very hard to collaborate with because they can hardly access even the most basic tools. This could make it hard to reach not only the students in the USA, but the volunteers who give their time to make this happen.

I'm just trying to figure out how legislation that would do such things as only allow access to certain commercial content would be a good thing? (Except for somehow supplanting some costs to commercial vendors from the end user.) But, hey, you get what you pay for in this case.

What the passing of legislation that kills net neutrality does is CLOSE the OPEN. It puts MOUNTAINS amidst the FLATNESS and it UNPLUGS the CONNECTED.

Give me liberty, give me Internet.

(Hat tip to Stephen Downes and Dr. Alec Couros for the link to the video.)

Look for the Happiness Drain and PLUG IT!

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:12:00 PDT

You've heard of a time suck? Something that wastes your time and just sucks it down the drain. Time management people teach you to watch for the little things that suck your time that add up to a total loss of productivity.

So, I'd like to encourage you today to watch for the Happiness Drain. These are the tiny little things that drain away your happiness and joy in life. These thoughts are spurred on by the edutopia article, Teach Yourself How to Be Happier.

I think that to me one of the most important things I do is to guard my joy. You know that you tend to become like the people you are around (this is why spouses start to look alike over the years!) We mimic one another's facial expressions and phraseology without even realizing it (thus the spread of common imspeak and emoticons among teens in common groups.)

So, ask yourself - are there relationships that are sucking the happiness out of my life? Are there people who are never happy and they are just killing me? You know that there ARE people who you can move away from and there are those who we must love unconditionally. (I put my husband and family in the UNCONDITIONAL category so when they are down I GOTTA listen.) But I'm talking about the category of people in your life who you do not HAVE to be around.

This would be places you go (beauty shops, groups, etc.) or people who you hang around.

Ask yourself these questions:

Does this person (or group of people):

Talk about positive things as much as negative?
Teach me new things?
Make me laugh?

And perhaps to me the biggest question of all is:

Do I like myself and how I act when I am around these people?

If not, take a look and see if you can find a way to reduce contact (if you cut off completely then you risk offending them) and replace it with positive things that buoy your attitude: listening to music or inspirational books, reading and learning something new, laughing, making a new friend, or being kind to someone who needs it.

We cannot control everything but there ARE things that we can control. If you see that a whirlpool is stirring in your life that sucks your happiness into its vortex of doom every time you get near it -- time to paddle elsewhere!

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/27/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:30:05 PDT

Flat Classroom Project Expands Its Reach
Write up on some flat classroom topics and what we're doing in my class this year.
tags: education, flatclassroom, inthenews, press
Gearing up for Another Flat Classroom Project « Haas | Learning
Fred Haas' reflections are so very real when it comes to ambitious global collaborations. I had to laugh as he said about NetGenEd (last spring's project): "Without question it was a mildly harrowing but ultimately rewarding experience."

The learning curve is TREMENDOUS but once you have it under your belt it is similar to your first year of teaching or boot camp for someone in the military. If you're wondering if this sort of thing is for you, take a read of Fred's very real reflections.

Julie nor I NOR ANY global collaborator will ever say it is easy - if it is perhaps you're not having to be as engaged as perhaps you need to be. However, it is most rewarding!
tags: education, learning, flatclassroom, edu_trends, bestpractices, www_world
Time in the Sandbox is needed « Learning Mosaic
Students do need time in the sandbox as this teacher from Madrid shares on her blog (how they introduced the math manipulatives in first grade.) My response:

"Sandboxing is ESSENTIAL. It is low threat, high exploration, high experimentation mode with whatever tool is at hand, and is part of my upcoming book ClickSmart as it relates to software. But as you’ve so eloquently put here, sandboxing is important to do with just about anything!"
tags: education, clicksmart, sandbox

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Striving to Wiki-fy my room

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:14:46 PDT

I have just got to take pictures of my room for you, just been so busy. But this year, I wanted to wiki-fy my walls. I want the very walls of my room to be places where students express and share what they are doing. I've done this in two ways. I have used velcro to stick small dry erase boards EVERYWHERE and also have used brightly colored duct tape to designate certain areas on my wall for certain types of things to be shared.

But I think that perhaps what Angela Maiers shared Sunday Night on her blog is what I really want to do! Idea Paint. Their official Ideapaint website has some interesting applications for school but perhaps my question is... if Ideapaint works, why are we even buying dry erase boards? Has anyone tested the heavy use of a school on this? Is anyone using it now? So, let's try it out!

Also, I turned up a link for a free sample of Ideapaint from Momblognetwork -just fill out this form.

IdeaPaint How To Video

IdeaPaint in Action Video

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/26/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:30:04 PDT

1:1 in Practice at Sinarmas World Academy
This is a great blog that is choc full of what can (and should be done) and if you're not following http://www.twitter.com/janeinjava , you should. I just snagged this from Julie Lindsay and wow, I'm impressed with what they (and Jane) are doing.
tags: education, learning, edublogger
Myebook - Movie Making for Kids
This ebook has over 10,000 views and it is about movie making for kids with just simple pictures.
tags: education, learning, technology, edu_news, professionaldevelopment
Welcome to Zon! | Enter Zon
Massive multiplayer role playing game for learning Mandarin Chinese. Immersion is supposed to be the best way to learn and here it is!
tags: education, learning, chinese, language, edu_newapp, web2.0, worldonline, www_world, prediction
E-Learning Journeys: Across My Desk (weekly)
My friend Julie Lindsay (now in China) is such a great friend and inspiration to me. I haven't said in some time how much I appreciate what she is doing and how much she shares. She writes a great blog that I wish more people would read.
tags: education, learning, edu_news, edublogger
Current State of Mobile Learning
Current State of Mobile Learning - this is a book that talks about mobile learning. (hat tip to Stephen Downes) - it is an important article for those designing learning to read (as well as my Flat Classroom students writing about mobile and ubiquitous computing.
tags: education, mobile, professionaldevelopment, curriculum, wireless_connectivity, worldonline, prediction
White House opens website programming to public
The whitehouse.gov will look the same to most people except that what is behind it is part of the open source movement with the whitehouse code - now powered by Drupal -- is open source.

For educators, if you've found administrators objecting to the open source movement, maybe you should consider using the white house as an example.
tags: opensource, education, edu_news, govt_business, outsourcing, web2.0, worldonline, www_world
Net Neutrality FAQ: What's in it for You - PC World
Net neutrality is an important issue being addressed by the US government right now to prevent companies from sort of creating their own version of the Internet. These rules are supposed to keep things "open." I'm also sending these to my digiteen students (you can follow digiteen at http://www.twitter.com/digiteen) and Flat Classroom students (http://www.twitter.com/flatclassroom) for work on their project.
tags: education, netneutrality, edu_news, edu_trends, worldonline, www_world, prediction, govt_business, digital_access, digital_communications, freedom, integrity

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Why Web 2.0 Teaching is Hard

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:06:57 PDT

This blog post is for Gerry Paille from British Columbia (http://twitter.com/tuchodi) who asked me on Twitter to explain a tweet about that Web 2.0 teaching is not easy. Here, Gerry, I Hope this is something you can use.

When you play basketball yourself - you work on your shot and you practice. You're in your own mind - your own head.

But then, one day you grow older and become a coach. Now, you have to get in the minds of other people. You have to not only understand basketball but psychology and team dynamics, motivational speaking, and the technical aspects of equipment. You have to not only see a player for what he/she is today but for what he/she could be. (Like how much are they going to grow in 3 years.) You have to put people in the best place that suits the team and not necessarily the person. It is a much more complex task than just managing yourself.

This particular example embodies why using Web 2 in teaching can be more challenging than the traditional test and lecture because you are moving from just speaking and giving a lecture and having them memorize and take a test to methods that require much more individualization and personalization as well as more collaboration. Each person has to ENGAGE. They have to JOIN. They have to WRITE.

They are moving to a more active tense which quite honestly, can make the teacher TENSE.

"Mrs. Vicki, I cannot join the space? Mrs. Vicki, I cannot find anything? Mrs. Vicki, what do I do? Mrs. Vicki, I am lost? Mrs. Vicki Mrs. Vicki?"

(Most teachers have nightmares where their name is called over and over and they don't know why.)

You are evolving into a coach.

Now, good teachers can be coaches and not use Web 2.0 tools, however, if you are using Web 2.0 in the classroom you HAVE to be a coach.

You cannot do it for them (the golden rule is that I never touch the mouse) - you have to teach THEM how to do it. (Isn't that what we are supposed to do anyway?)

This, my friends, is why I tweeted the other day that if anyone thinks using Web 2.0 in teaching is easy is not doing Web 2.0 teaching. Web 2.0 teaching gets past the tools (signing up and USING the tools for the sake of the tools) and allows the tools to mash together to create learning experiences.

This is not something any of us have perfected, I think. (For example, I fell flat on my face trying to work out with my students using some of the Skype extras this week and wasted at least 20 minutes!) However, this is something we aspire to!

So, using Web 2.0 tools in teaching is not easy but it is worth it.

It is worth it in engagement and thinking skills and the polish that comes from being buffed and buffeted by the sandpaper of the problems we face any time technology is involved.

The world we live in is full of change, technology, problems, frustration, and lots and lots of people and these are things you cannot condense to words and put in a textbook but are only written upon the textbook of experience when you engage students in positive learning experiences online.

WatchKnow Has Launched: Wiki-fying Educational Videos

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:15:00 PDT

This wiki based site organizes videos that will help kids learn: meet WatchKnow. In fact, don't just meet watch know, edit it a bit while you're at it.

How to Edit on WatchKnow

Just one catch, dude -- the videos it indexes ARE HOSTED ON YOUTUBE!!! So, can you allow youtube videos without allowing youtube in your school? I don't know but I do know that again, we are faced with this seemingly age old discussion of adding some sort of layer on top of youtube videos that Bud the Teacher and I discussed some time back. (See his post: for Vicki: An Expanded Tweet) and my original post on Youtube edu.

Again, Bud keeps coming back to the point that somehow he thinks I'm advocating youtube censorship! NO such thing. This is about repurposing youtube and making it work in such a way to be usable for education. I'm not sure yet, but suspect that something like WatchKnow will do just that: but those who filter are going to have to figure out how this could work.

Hat tip to Gary Sanger and Stephen Downes for this one.

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/23/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:30:04 PDT

Teach Yourself How to Be Happier | Edutopia
There are things we teach and things we SHOULD teach. Teaching ourselves to be happier is something we have to look for.
tags: education, learning
Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Will the Nook Eat the Kindle's Lunch?
Barnes and Noble's response to the Kindle: The Nook.

It uses the Android operating system (Google's mobile OS) and can install 3rd party Android Apps. It also has an MP3 player but does not have built in text to speech (so no UDL here) -

If you use the free wifi at Barnes and Noble you can read any ebook for free - otherwise it is something that you need to buy.
tags: education, ebook, library, librarian, wireless_connectivity, web2.0, www_world, edu_news, edu_trends
WatchKnow - Videos for kids to learn from. Organized.
Site that organizes youtube videos for students. This is very cool.
tags: education, web2.0, worldonline, arts_entertainment
Things That Keep Us Up at Night - 10/1/2009 - School Library Journal
Must read article that is tearing through the blogs of librarians and media specialists like wildfire this October. If you work with libaries and media centers this is a must read and must pass along if only to spark conversation (and oh, it has.)
tags: education, mediacenter, librarian, administrator, edu_news
A Difference: Scribes Spreading
Darrent Kuropatwa has put together a list of class scribe blogs that you can review if you are intrigued as this trend.
tags: education, blogging, edu_trends, edublogger
A Week For Computer Science Education | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
Conversations about Computer Science education week are beginning to float around. I think we can do many easy things including webinars and sessions with leaders that students can interact with live and even just a hashtag for people to follow on twitter who care about the topic would be useful.
tags: education, learning, computer, computerscience_teacher, computerscience, edu_news
A Week For Computer Science Education: US designates Dec 7 as computer Sci education week
Computer Science Education week in the USA is going to be December 7th - Microsoft Blogger Alfred Thompson (and in my humble opinion one of the definitive leaders in advocating computer science education) has shared a blog post about this. If you teach computer science or touch on it, consider planning some things.
tags: education, computerscience_teacher, computerscience
Keep It Clean
My good friend @Luke1946 on Twitter (we've also met before - he is SOOOOO smart) pointed me to the resources that he uses to help speed up the boot of computers. WE're having sloowwww boot times in our computer lab and here is where I'm heading.
tags: education, learning, techsupport, all_teachers, edu_newapp, techintegrator

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Heading to Oz or Ossifying? The whirlwind of debate around Libraries

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:30:00 PDT

Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza have written an article on School Library Journal that is tearing through the blogs of librarians and media specialists like wildfire this October. If you want to come to the cusp of the debates swirling around libraries and media centers like Dorothy's Cyclone that took her to Oz, this is the article to read because truly, the items here hit at the core of school change.

One piece particularly hit me as a teacher was the part on creative commons where Doug and Joyce say:

It is also time to share with teachers and learners the rationale for Creative Commons and other emerging concepts that are less restrictive than traditional copyright licensing.

1

Are we helping our students understand the issue of intellectual property from the point of view of the creator, not just the consumer? Librarians need to help students assign rights to their own creative works. They share information about a new world of sharing while respecting intellectual property.

Gosh. We talk about creative commons but I'm not looking at them as Creators as I ought to! I'm missing something here. In the past, I've taught them how to pick the proper license but pretty much I sort of led the decision making for them -- I need to advise them and teach them to MAKE THEIR OWN DECISION.

If you read the article above and want to view the responses that are garnering the most attention, Doug writs over on his blog about "Practicing Visionaries" and the responses he has gotten as did Joyce in her forum post on her Teacher Libarian Ning.

I think what I like most about this conversation is how this is being hashed out in public with thoughts between librarians. I think what I like least about this conversation is that truly public isn't public because it is on the Internet - on Doug's blog and Joyce's Ning and so many librarians, media specialists, and teacher librarians cannot access these things at school to be PART OF THE CONVERSATION.

Truly I feel that every librarian I know wants to do a good job and wants to improve their library but they just don't know how. My favorite book I've read thus far is from David Loetschner The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win because it just makes so much sense. But again, I am NOT a librarian nor a media specialist and really can only reflect on what I see that I'm missing from my own teaching where it intersects with the teaching parts that are threaded throughout Doug's article.

So, pull the librarians and media specialists in and let them converse and not only let them converse but let them change.

Wonder where this whirlwind will take things. You know there is something to be said for talk, particularly among people who ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING as I believe so many of these are. So, read up, learn, and decide which of these points apply to you and your organization and what you should do to improve your media center.

Very Convincing Deceitful Web Pages that Install Spyware: Teachers, You Gotta Use your Noggin

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:23:21 PDT

This is a web site designed to LOOK like your computer. I am passing this along because it looks so much like a legitimate page on your computer.

One of our teachers called me over and I captured the screenshot so I could email it out to the other teachers at my school and also so you can see it as well. You can tell this is a scam because the URL is showing in the web browser bar.

My teachers are great about NOT clicking when they have a question and they skype me or ask me and boy, do I appreciate it.

So, here is a shout out today to one of our third grade teachers Mrs. Donna Worsham for using her "noggin" (as we say in South Georgia) and figuring out that she should call me and not click.

If you don't know ask someone who does. Using your noggin is going to save your school time and money because it is easier to keep problems from happening than to fix them!

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/21/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:30:05 PDT

Flat Classroom Conference Information Wiki
You can find information out about the Flat Classroom conference and also view our video documentary of last year's conference also. This year Julie Lindsay, Bernajean Porter, and I are running the student strand which will also incorporate educators as well.
tags: education, learning, flatclassroom, conference, professionaldevelopment
flatclassroomconference - Flat Classroom at ASB Unplugged Form
We are working towards this year's Flat Classroom Conference which will be held in conjunction with ASB Unplugged (since we are sharing opening ceremonies we are calling it a mini-conference.) The same powerful learning from last year's conference will be there and you as the teacher and your students will come away transformed! This is the application form and we do have some scholarships and host families for students although we do not have scholarships for airfare. This is in February and applications for scholarships and student attendees are due by October 31, 2009. This wiki has all the information.
tags: education, learning, flatclassroom
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Visual and Dyslexic Thinking and Learning Styles and the Educational Controversies
Gotta respond to this one talking about the controversy of Daniel Willingham who says learning styles don't exist.

I can say that there are no stars in the sky all day long but when I walk out at night - I see them clearly. One who does not teach is living in the daylight of his/her own supposition and clearly not educating others. As a teacher I and the mother of a dyslexic and ADHD diagnosed children I can say definitively that my children learn differently and if that isn't a style then what is it? To me, this sort of thinking is harmful and just another excuse not to encourage differentiation and the reaching of every child.
tags: education, dyslexia
Half an Hour: Thoughts on Trust
I enjoyed looking at these thoughts on Trust by Stephen Downes and wrote a lengthy response of my own on this. It is good to consider trust and learn to check things out ourselves.
tags: education, learning, ethics
Online, teachers walk a fine line | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY
Teachers have a different standard. It is fascinating to read this newspaper article and also the responses. Our students on Flat Classroom project and Digiteen will be reviewing this information because teachers are held to a higher standard online.
tags: education, virtual_communication, web2.0, www_world, social_entrepreneurship, digital_responsibilities, digital_communications

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/20/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:30:05 PDT

Microsoft exposes Firefox users to drive-by malware downloads | Zero Day | ZDNet.com
Looks like the problems many of us have been having in Firefox (last week in particular) may actually be from Microsoft? Come on !! I love firefox and don't have my students use IE for this reason (slowness, lack of ad ons, viruses, malware.) The only time I'm using Chrome now is for special webapps (Toodledo) and also Google Wave (it seems to consume any other web browser.) This ZDNET article is a follow through from Stephen Downes' amazing resource sharing blog - if you haven't subscribed, you should.
tags: education, learning, edu_newapp, techintegrator
The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes
New book reviewed by Stephen Downes about gender differences in brains.
tags: education, reading, research, edu_news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/19/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:30:04 PDT

danieltenner.com — What problems does Google Wave solve?
Excellent article on what Google wave is intended to be: a step up from email to allow for document collaboration. OK, now I finally get it. Seeing people talk about it replacing twitter, etc. I was like "nah - not with THIS" but seeing this blog post made the light go on - a must read for those who want to truly understand what google wave is for and to not get so hyper about what it isn't.
tags: education, google, googlewave, workflow_software, virtual_communication, worldonline
A flat world - Flat Classroom Project
I love these views from my student and her use of the term "horizontal" teaching - I think she has inadevertently hit on a very important concept for us teachers to understand.

"Everyone has different views, different things they are good at, and different things they know. In a classroom, the teacher used to stand in front of the students, and lecture all day long. Now many of those teachers have started to teach "horizontally". This means that the teacher doesn't necessarily stand in front of her class and lecture, but works with the class, not only teaching them, but allowing them to teach her new things as well.

This video gave me different opinions and opened my mind to a flattened world. I agree in many ways with Mr Friedman, because I personally do not learn well by having someone lecture me, it is very easy to get distracted, and by learning horizontally, I can interact with my teacher and classmates, and I feel like I learn so much more, because not only do I pay attention, but the fact that I am interacting, and experiencing what she is teaching helps out a lot."
tags: education, learning, fcp, flatclassroomproject, edu_trends
Miller's "The World is Flat" Reflective Blog Post - Flat Classroom Project
Excellent overview of Thomas Friedman's lecture at MIT which gives essential information on the history of globalization as written by a tenth grader. This is excellent writing and a nice overview of what he says in the fifty minute video. (She also embedded the video.) Excellent work.

Miller also writes for Terry Freedman out of the UK, in a column called "Ask Miller" and I think her writing skills have been honed and improved as she has written for Terry as a ninth grader. She is a product also of the flat world as she has worked to write in a Google Doc for a person across the Atlantic Ocean!
tags: education, flatclassroom, worldonline

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Spotlight on Education 10/17/2009

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:30:05 PDT

ISTE | ISTE 2010 Keynote Project
International Society of Technology Educators is asking for your thoughts on their keynote for ISTE 2010. Go there and share!
tags: education, learning, teaching, iste, edu_news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Keynote I'd Like to See at ISTE 2010: Vote and Share Yours

coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:40:52 PDT

This is your time to contribute. A massive debate is emerging over at ISTE's keynote discussion forum and as part of this massive edublogosphere (maybe it should be renamed edutweetosphere?) ISTE has crowdsourced one of their keynotes for ISTE 2010. I've put in my two cents.

Right now, two of the proposals that seem to be running through twitter are Kevin Hunnicutt's proposal and that by Scott Mcleod. I'll share those proposals and then my personal thoughts and then share with you my own proposal for the keynote. (note that just because someone proposes it DOES NOT MEAN that person is going to DO the keynote - right now it is about content - phase 2 is about speakers.)

From Kevin Hunnicutt (go to the ISTE forum to cast your vote for this one.)

Thoughts from Me:

To me, it is not just about the trends. I think that ISTE will be chock full of trends, tools, and tactics. I think that keynotes should take us past the cool factor into that gray place in our cerebral hemisphere that connects new pathways between our left and right brain to help us understand how to effect change.

Scott McLeod has a good point on his post that we must impact leaders.

But to me, it is time to pull in the research on change and the book that has totally transformed my thinking and put the transformation at my school in overdrive has been the Influencer: the Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson et. al -- if we have the chance to ask ISTE for what we want - I think we should consider not just asking for more of the same. If I want trends, tools, tactics, I have those in all of the sessions.

But we want to change all attendees of ISTE. We're not talking tactics, we're talking strategies of change. Influencer talks about two types of change leaders that need to be involved before change can happen: formal leaders and opinion leaders. We have got to tap into BOTH.

Yes, I love tools and I totally adore Kevin Hunnicut, the man who proposed this (He's the founder of Tweetwood Mac, after all ;-) but I really think that this keynote should be more and we should push ISTE to ask for some people who can transform our thinking.

The authors of Influencer who also wrote Crucial Conversations are those I wish that they would bring because they are not just about hype, but are about transformational change based upon the research and can inspire us as individuals to be the kind of people who transform classrooms.

This about helping these children in our classrooms who are desperately needing to be reached in the ways that they learn. These kids are drowning and dropping out of school. We just don't need to talk about more tools that are going to leave so many glassy eyed and lost but about making a difference in the ways we can to have wide scale positive incorporation of technology into the classrooms in ways that reach kids.

I just feel like that the tools will change by next year but that if we can learn how to effect change then we can be transformed. My prop is http://iste2010.uservoice.com/pages/30480-iste-2010-conference-keynote-topic-suggestions/suggestions/353624-transformational-influence-finding-and-leveraging-the-small-behaviors-that-make-a-big-difference?ref=title

but also take a look at Scott McLeod's which is in the same vein.

Scott McLeod's Proposal (go to the ISTE forum to vote and discuss)

So, since I posted the original thoughts, a pretty cool conversation is happening -- I'm including it here in reverse order:

Vicki Davis

Scott, the research shows you need BOTH. So if we can incorporate both wouldn't that be a better keynote? Again, I think this exclusive approach limits people because NOT ONLY admins will be at ISTE but people from all areas. Shouldn't the keynote be more of an appeal and of use to everyone and not just to admins. Let a smaller session be just for admins but let a keynote be for all of us.

Otherwise, you end up with unempowered, disheartened teachers and IT staff who know that because their principal is not on board that they have no hope.

Patterson also wrote a book Crucial Conversations which is about this very thing -- how can teachers, IT directors have the crucial conversations that turn admins and principals into advocates of technology and not opponents. YES, we absolutely have to have admins on board it is ESSENTIAL but if we cannot be an admin we should be able to influence an admin.

Scott McLeod
Vicki, I'm a big fan of the Influencer book, but the research is pretty clear that opinion leaders / teacher leaders / IT leaders / whomever get stymied if formal leaders (principals, superintendents, boards, policymakers) don't get it. Why? Because it's the formal leaders that have control over all of the important variables: money, time, personnel, organizational vision and direction, etc. Teacher / IT / opinion leaders are an extremely important part of the equation - and I'm a strong believer in shared, distributed leadership - but the bottom line is that formal school leaders must be the key focus if we want long-term, systemic change to occur.

Vicki Davis

Scott, the research shows you need BOTH. So if we can incorporate both wouldn't that be a better keynote? Again, I think this exclusive approach limits people because NOT ONLY admins will be at ISTE but people from all areas. Shouldn't the keynote be more of an appeal and of use to everyone and not just to admins. Let a smaller session be just for admins but let a keynote be for all of us.

Otherwise, you end up with unempowered, disheartened teachers and IT staff who know that because their principal is not on board that they have no hope.

Patterson also wrote a book Crucial Conversations which is about this very thing -- how can teachers, IT directors have the crucial conversations that turn admins and principals into advocates of technology and not opponents. YES, we absolutely have to have admins on board it is ESSENTIAL but if we cannot be an admin we should be able to influence an admin.

So, aren't you dying to hop in here and chat on this one? Then, please do by going to the ISTE forum with Scott's Proposal and weighing in.

OK, so, it is no mystery that I'd like Patterson or one of the authors of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
, and Crucial Confrontations: Tools for talking about broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior at ISTE. They research change and isn't that what we're talking about? Don't we believe in research based best practices or do we just want to hear the anecdotes of another person who may or may not apply to our situation?

Here it is in text form:

Transformational Influence: Finding and leveraging the small behaviors that make a big difference

The current research on positive influence (Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Patterson et. all) talks about high leverage behaviors and promoting systemic change using the 6 areas of influence. We need to look at the research of change as it relates to incorporating the technology in ways that research shows will improve learning.

But we're dealing with people here - until we get past the technology and learn how to work with people, we will forever be stuck talking to each other. There are areas where systemic change IS happening.

We should try to get Patterson or one of the speakers to ISTE and also have them lead a panel of educators (principal, admin, IT director) to talk about the 6 aspects of change and help people consider the human aspect of what we're trying to do as well as build upon the research about positive change in organizations.

It should also include a component about what it takes to be an opinion leader, the person who truly can transform an organization. Yes, technology is important but until we understand the people we will forever be relegated to being underutilized and mis-implemented as the regular classroom remains unchanged.

Does it really matter what Kevin, Scott, or Vicki think anyway?

So, here is the beautiful thing. Sure, Kevin, Scott, and Vicki can hammer away at each other sharing their thoughts and opinion and surely that may influence the opinions of some.

But Scott, Kevin, Vicki or anyone else cannot truly vote in this keynote. This keynote is the first crowdsourced keynote from ISTE and I clap and would yell with a million voices a thank you for the gutsy move that this took to say "Hey, let's let people do this."

So, this will morph, change, evolve, and be hashed out by you and me and all of us. And I"m going to tell you something - if you don't jump in here and vote or talk or propose, you lose your right to complain.

That's right. You have totally given up your complaint ticket by abstaining on this one. This is your keynote my friends and I don't care WHO wins this should not be about who is liked the best but about what needs to be said and what we need to learn as educators. Personally, I think that the leading topics aren't what we need as a keynote, but hey, I'm only one person.

Get in there and vote and share: Power to the People!