News and Trends: Sunday, November 15, 2015 Why Teachers Need to Keep Going Even When It’s Hard This story of Vedran Smailovic is resonating with the heartbreaking weekend in France. Some teachers are letting me know they are sharing this story. His heroic music amidst the bombing of Sarajevo reminds us that as we deal with horrible things in our world, we each make music that makes a difference. Also a shout out to Aussie teacher, Jennifer (don’t have her last name), who helped me tweak and make this blog post more accurate. I appreciate Jennifer taking the time to help me make this blog post even better. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/why-teachers-need-to-keep-going-even-when-its-hard/  2. 10 Ways to Flip a Kid and Turn Their Day Around Sylvia Duckworth made a sketch note sent this blog post traveling through teacher inboxes and tweets. It again reminds me that a great graphic helps noble messages spread further. Thanks, Sylvia. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/10-ways-to-flip-a-kid-and-turn-their-day-around/  10 Ways to Flip a Kid - Sketchnote by @sylviaduckworth was the top shared graphic this week from this blog. 3. Notetaking Skills for 21st Century Students An essential guidebook in helping kids learn how to take notes that they REMEMBER! Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/note-taking-skills-21st-century-students/  4. 5 Ways to Encourage Gratitude in Your Classroom Teachers are planning how to see thankfulness. I updated this post and reshared it to make it more current. I’m thankful so many of you are preparing lesson plans this week to help kids have gratitude. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/5-ways-to-encourage-gratitude/  5. 15 Best Google Drive Add-Ons for Education Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/best-google-drive-add-ons/  6. Top Education Tweets of the Week - November 14, 2015 Educators like these summaries of what is most helpful on Twitter the prior week. Just posted yesterday, showing up on the top list for the week is pretty amazing. We all must remember, not every educator can get on Twitter (for various reasons). But we can take Twitter to educators through summaries using Twitter analytics. The top tweets are calculated on clicks, retweets, and favorites so remember, if you are on Twitter, your vote counts. I also poured out my heart about some things educators are sharing about the tears we are crying for France and all terror victims this weekend. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/top-education-tweets-of-the-week-november-14-2015/  7. 6 Reading Comprehension Problems and What to Do about Them by MJ Linane This blog post was authored by educator MJ Linane and edited by me as a sponsored post. I work hard to show you practical classroom information as I share the best tools that work. If it is a sponsor of my show or a blog post, you can count on them being awesome. (I’ve got several new sponsors I’m excited to share with you this week!) Actively Learn, the sponsor of this particular post has a free demo anyone can use. The infographic is worth sharing with all reading teachers. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/6-reading-comprehension-problems/  reading comprehension problems infographic to share 8. What to Do When Someone Hates You It astounds me that this is on the list so many weeks. My heart breaks every time I see how many people are searching for an answer for dealing with personal hatred. (The other heartbreaking chart topper is #11 If I’m Such a Great Teacher, Why Do I Want to Quit?) Oh dear friends, I so understand the pain — not your personal pain, but my own as I struggle with hatred and struggle to keep going each day even when my heart breaks. You are loved, teacher. You are important. Encourage each other. We need each other to make it. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/what-to-do-when-someone-hates-you/  9. 19 Epic iPhone Apps and Tips In this blog post, I include a quick 7-minute video showing all of the apps that are on my iPhone home screen and how I use them. I include several major productivity hacks that I’ve used through the years. It may seem old, but when we share our productivity tips, it helps others. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/19-epic-iphone-productivity-apps-tips/  10. 6 Ways to Motivate Teachers: Be the Hope Helping teachers motivate themselves is a challenge. This post shares some things I’ve learned by watching great leaders and have seen work at my school. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/motivate-teachers/  Thank you, dear teachers, for just being you. Thank you to all of my new (and old) friends at Miami Device. Encouragement is a two way street. When a person stops me in person or sends an email and tells me that a blog post helped them, it means the world to me. I’m shaped by everything that you do.   The post Top Blog Posts for Teachers This Week appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Every Classroom Matters Episode 188 Self publishing seems hard. But as UK-based educator David Hopkins shares on today’s episode, if you can use Microsoft Word, you can do it. David has self published three books. He explains simply how teachers and authors can self publish books in print and ebook format. Essential Questions: How Teachers Can Self-Publish Books What do teachers do first when they want to self publish? How can teachers use Microsoft Word to self publish? What is the difference between formatting ebooks and print books? What tools and sites did David use when he self-published? How can non-US educators publish with Amazon? If you want to know how this can be used in the classroom, listen to episode 184. Educator Resources from this Episode A big shout-out to David who wrote up this episode on his blog. David shares the links to resources that will help you get started self publishing your own books. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book Planning and creating your eBook Writing an eBook: Lessons learned on how, where, and why The Really Useful #EdTechBook - David’s most recent book QR Codes in Education - David’s second book What is a Learning Technologist? - David’s first book Createspace Other Platforms where Teachers Can Self Publish Books Thanks Lisa Durff for compiling this list of other self publishing resources. Lulu XLibris Infinity Publishing iUniverse If you like this topic, check out my book Reinventing Writing. Join the Every Classroom Matters Awesome Educators Network on Facebook You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. The post How Teachers Can Self Publish Books appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Every Classroom Matters Episode 189 I’m sick and tired of excuses. Everyone makes them but the biggest, most obnoxious dumbest excuse we’ve adopted is "we have to prepare kids for THE TEST." Sure the test has become a reality. But with so many people seeing the schools KILL THE LOVE OF LEARNING so we can help kids memorize rote facts for a TEST — why isn’t more happening to CHANGE THINGS? Schools know we can do better but why do schools still do the same old things that didn’t work last time? Parents see it too! Two thirds of US parents agreeing that there’s too much emphasis on testing. It is time to shift. Essential Questions: Uncommon Learning: Creating Schools that Work for Kids What DOESN’T work in education? How can we let go of control and still prepare kids for life? How we should evaluate our schools? What is it going to take to help schools focus on learning and not testing? How do you help teachers who refuse to learn new things or are so burnt out and tired they don’t want to join informal learning? When society looks back on us in a hundred years will we be seen as a people who did what is right even though it is hard? Or will we be seen as a people who make excuses to do the wrong thing because we’re tired? May it not be! Change is hard but it is for our kids. It is worth it! Keep them the center! Focus on learning! We can all level up learning!  Educator Resources from this Episode Eric Sheninger’s new book: Uncommon Learning: Creating Schools that Work for Kids @E_Sheninger If something is important to us, we find a way. If not, then we’ll always find an excuse. Eric Sheninger "Schools work better for adults than they work for kids. We need to work harder to make schools work for kids." Eric Sheninger When society looks back on us in 100 years…Will we be seen as people who do what is right even though it is hard?Or will we be seen as people who make excuses to do the wrong thing because we’re tired? Vicki Davis Join the Every Classroom Matters Awesome Educators Network on Facebook You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. The post How we can stop TEACHING TO THE TEST and start empowering learning (for a change) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Play Good Games, Get Great Results Game based learning in the classroom should not be worksheets with points. It should be engaging and exciting. Here are eight ways to level up game based learning. Because, face it, many educational "games" fall short. Chocolate on broccoli. That is what many educators call these games that fall short of what great gaming can be. Dr. Lee Graham, a creator of the literature Minecraft experience Givercraft, says, Some games are computerized worksheets. That is what game designers mean by ‘chocolate on broccoli.’

Every Classroom Matters Episode 190 Language teachers have the daunting task of helping students memorize so many words! How can it be fun? How can you help students learn them faster? Jason Levine uses hip hop in his language education classes. Surprisingly, he teaches teachers (even those, like me, with no rhythm) to use hip hop in their language education classes too. Essential Questions: Hip Hop Language Education: Using Rap to Teach, Really? Why do hip hop and language education work together? Can you use hip hop if you’re a language teacher who can’t rap at all? How can any teacher facilitate hip hop activities with language? How can teachers make the repetitive practice of language EXCITING? What are the 3 R’s of Language Learning? We have yet another example of using things students love to hook them into learning. Hip hop is the most listened to form of music in the world, according to the research Jason cites on the show. English is the most learned second language in the world. Combining hip hop and language education is a masterful use of both of these. So, you’re not comfortable with this — you CAN use someone else’s videos. Jason raps on the show and I think that perhaps I could even do it (although I wouldn’t sound as cool.) Have an open mind, language teachers, to move away from flash cards and towards music.  Educator Resources from this Episode @fluencymc Jason’s website with videos Jason talks about his hip hop language education method on the show and the 3 R’s to help students relax and actually learn the language. Let’s talk about hip hop language education. You can do it, even if you’re a teacher with no rhythm. Join the Every Classroom Matters Awesome Educators Network on Facebook You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. The post Hip Hop Language Education: Using Rap to Teach, Really? appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Trends and Tweets that Have People Talking Emotions and relating to other humans is reflected in a subtle way on this week’s top education tweets. Teachers are telling kids and each other that they matter. Teachers are talking about making their own music in their classroom. Thanksgiving-themed lesson plans are being shared while many educators gear up for Hour of Code in December (may the force and Minecraft be with you). Meanwhile, I’m upgrading my Makerspace and ditching my old projector and Interactive White Board. I’ve got my 10 year blog-a-versary coming up the first week of December. Wow! So, this week, I’m thankful for you. This Thanksgiving week ten years a go, I was reading and re-reading David Warlick‘s book on blogging. You all teach me so much. Do kids know they are special? Do they know they matter? Do you know your impact as a teacher if you stop to tell them that they do? Please take time this season to celebrate the strengths in the kids you teach. You matter, teacher. You make a difference. Please get out there and share that message with the kids you teach. Speak it. Tell it. Write it. Show it! Top 10 Education Tweets of the Week: week ending November 21, 2015 1. You Matter is spreading Yes #choose2matter and #youmatter are such important words for kids! @AngelaMaiers https://t.co/8r5MxHJrTJ — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 19, 2015 2. Top Blog Posts for Teachers Top Blog Posts for Teachers This Week https://t.co/SD7DDodhAJ pic.twitter.com/yzl3xUvR0S — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 15, 2015 3. Sylvia Duckworth Adds a Sketchnote to "Why to Keep Going Even When It’s Hard" The awful happenings in France had many people sharing and clicking on this post. In an effort to encourage more people, Sylvia Duckworth sketchnoted the quotes that spoke to her. Please make your music, teachers! Sketchnote by @sylviaduckworth for Why Teachers Need to Keep Going Even When It's Hard https://t.co/BjwkbUlwZD pic.twitter.com/bWKYAhjWd5 — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 18, 2015 4. Hour of Code includes Minecraft-inspired programming! Minecraft and Star Wars themed programming is part of Hour of Code this year. YES! Kids can program MINECRAFT for hour of code- Minecraft meets Hour of Code https://t.co/N9LolbAvMy #stem — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 16, 2015 5. 5 Ways to Teach Gratitude in Your Classroom was Updated this week This popular post needed an update. You can teach gratitude. 5 Ways to Teach Gratitude in your Classroom https://t.co/rAnn1Y8JFo — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 15, 2015 6. Nancy White talks openly about students as curators In this show, Nancy White discusses something intriguing: the use of an "army of retired educators" to comment on student work. I’m curious how we could use such a method more often. She also talks about a project that didn’t work as well. The difference? Audience. When you’re blogging or doing work online, the first 10 days are vitally important as students should engage with audience. Nancy’s open reflection has reinforced what many of us have seen. NEW! Project-Based Learning: Teaching Students to Be Great Curators https://t.co/wmimUv8qVY with @NancyW #edchat — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 20, 2015 7. My Makerspace gets and Upgrade with an inFocus JTouch! Cool! My husband is an engineer and put this together for me! We are drawing on it, working on it, an doing incredible work together! I got questions and people clicked to look closer! Installing my Infocus touch screen Jboard soooooo pumped #makerspace in my classroom just got more awesome! pic.twitter.com/DD3f6gfCjE — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 16, 2015 8. So many of us are jealous of this amazing classroom! Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy, found this incredible classroom. Lots of us are wishing and hoping for classrooms that look and feel more like this one. AWESOME find @cultofpedagogy ! Classroom Eye Candy: A Flexible-Seating Paradise https://t.co/1HIX6lFqG5 pic.twitter.com/F4O6CfaODH — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 20, 2015 9. Many of us are thankful to be on Thanksgiving break! Friday afternoon, lots of us were breathing a sigh of relief. While some US teachers still have two more days next week. Very glad to be on thanksgiving break. No words, just thankfulness. Tiring week. How about you? — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 20, 2015 10. Top Education Tweets of the Week for Last Week Tweeting and non-tweeting educators are telling me they’re enjoying the top tweets based on Twitter analytics. As I often say in these updates, "clickthroughs" matter. Some of these have hundreds of people cicking on them. You can’t necessarily tell by retweets what engages educators! I challenge you to take the time to set up your Twitter analytics and look at the last month, three months or even year. If you don’t know how to embed tweets or anything else, ask in the comments and I’ll get some instructions up here. NEW! Top Education Tweets of the Week https://t.co/oFcSiLHypQ — Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) November 15, 2015 Happy Thanksgiving! I’m so thankful that you take the time to share and learn online. I appreciate those of you who take time to read my blog. As I help feed 50 something people this week, I’ll be thinking of so many of you taking time with your families this week. Savor the moment, put down your cell phone, and enjoy the laughter and smiles. There will always be a new gadget but each family member is unique and precious. Be thankful for what matters. People matter most. The post Top 10 Education Tweets of the Week: November 21, 2015 appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Every Classroom Matters Episode 192 Writable surfaces. Movable spaces. Micro environments. Never heard these terms? Our classroom design helps us create learning experiences for students.  David Jakes explains modern classroom design. Essential Questions: 3 Learning Experiences You Should Give to Every Student How can classroom design improve learning? What are cutting edge trends in classroom design? Are there simple, inexpensive ways to improve the classroom? Look at your classroom. Examine your routines. Can students shift positions quickly? Classroom design and efficiency go hand in hand.  Check out David Jakes @djakes and his Learning Experiences Design Playbook on today’s show. Join the Every Classroom Matters Awesome Educators Network on Facebook You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. The post 3 Learning Experiences You Should Give to Every Student appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

News and Trends: Sunday, November 22, 2015 This was a busy week at my school. Kids weren’t too excited to be there but we got so much done anyway. Friday was capped off with sharing with each student something that makes them special. The response was amazing from parents but it was about the students. Every student needs to know they matter. But you can only tell each student how they are unique if you KNOW THEM. You must have a relationship. That is what teaching is about anyway! Relationship first, then learning can happen. 1. 10 Ways to Flip a Kid and Turn His Day Around Inspired by a comment Kevin Honeycutt made on my show and enhanced with Sylvia Duckworth’s sketchnote, what a great discussion for so many schools to be having! This was #2 on last week’s list. Permalink: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/10-ways-to-flip-a-kid-and-turn-their-day-around/  2. 8 Ways to Level Up Game Based Learning in the Classroom Worksheets with points doesn’t work. But authentic games do. Full of real classroom examples and great books to read, this blog post is hot.

Every Classroom Matters Episode 193 When you see an accomplished educator like Alec Couros, it is easy to think that he’s always been this way. You might believe that he’s never made mistakes. You might think that everything was perfect from day one. In this conversation, Alec takes us through his educational journey and the truths he’s learned along each step. As we listened to the show, Sylvia Duckworth and I jotted down six epic educational truths. (I put the epic in there, he wouldn’t, but I think you’ll agree, some of these insights are profound. Hat tip to Sylvia for her sketchnote below!) I appreciate Alec’s candor. I believe his journey as a teacher will inspire you like it has me. Thank you VIF Learning Center, today’s sponsor. Today’s sponsor is VIF Learning Center. VIF Learning Center has lesson plans, classroom connections and many ways for educators to connect and join classrooms to become globally connected. Click here to try out VIF Learning Center Essential Questions: Alec Couros’ 6 Epic Truths About Education Did Alec immediately know he wanted to be a teacher? How do you recognize when a moment is important to a child? What is the problem with childhood today? How can adults help? What did Alec learn about learning as he led a MOOC with educators from more than 75 countries? It takes years for master craftsmen to perfect their art. So, why do we expect ourselves (and others) to be masters the moment they enter the classroom? If we can help this generation of teachers joining our ranks persist instead of always being dissed, we might just find that many of them are great teachers who got off to a rough start. I appreciate Alec’s@courosa transparency in today’s show. As he talked, I felt like yelling "Yes, That was me!" The craftsmanship of teaching starts with another ship — relationship. We can do this. Bumps in the road don’t mean that the road isn’t worth traveling. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. The post Alec Couros’ 6 Epic Educational Truths appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Social Media Insights Twitter counts on blog posts are broken. Can you fix Twitter counts? Why did this happen? Is Twitter in trouble? Let’s not panic, let’s analyze what has happened and how we can still find Twitter counts on a page (for now.) Although Twitter announced some time ago their plan to get rid of the counts that show how many times a page has been tweeted, they turned off the service on November 20. Now, my blog and many others across the web just show a tweet button, but no count. You’re not alone. We’re all in the same boat. To make more money, Twitter wants us to use their gnip API service to retrieve Twitter counts. The only drawback — a BIG ONE — $300-500 per month to retrieve Twitter counts. That is crazy and out of reach for many of us. How Can I Find out Twitter Counts for a Page? So, here is an alternative fix to the big price tag until things get sorted out: Install the Buzz Sumo Chrome Extension Sign up for the Free Buzz Sumo Account You can now use this to see how many Twitter shares a page has if you want to see that. But Buzz Sumo says they won’t be pulling the data live. They say most of the shares happen in the first three days, so after that, they may not update their shares quite as much (due to costs.) You can’t fix Twitter counts on blog posts, but using Buzz Sumo, you can see what they are. Why Did Twitter Break Their Share Counts? Many of us have come to depend on the "social cred" of a blog post or site. When you go to a blog post and see that it has hundreds of shares, you think differently about the post than otherwise. So, why did Twitter say they wanted to "break" this. Spam. Some blame the "bots." Indeed, some sites have gamed the system and hired or had "bots" share and reshare their content. By removing the temptation, the use of bots will no longer help get more shares and perhaps make better content on Twitter in the long run. (Less spam.) Money. In the end, Twitter says they have to be "sustainable." In other words, they have to pay the bills. They claim this use was "undocumented." We didn’t make it, so we don’t guarantee it, says Twitter. In the end, they have to pay for their service. They need to monetize it. But that doesn’t explain why Facebook, Linked In, and Pinterest all provide the service while Twitter won’t anymore. Traffic. If you could imagine that every page with a Twitter counter sent a count to Twitter’s API service. I would imagine this was a lot of traffic. But, you can’t really fix Twitter counts even with the new option from gnip. Inaccurate. Twitter often argued that reshares were not truly a reflection of engagement. On this one point, I’ll agree. Often, I share tweets on my top tweets of the week that, on the surface, do not look to be popular. Due to reshares, conversations, and clicks they are popular. But, I would argue, just because these numbers aren’t an accurate reflection of engagement, doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. I agree with Stuart Thomas on Memeburn that, If Twitter’s going to thrive, as it’s shareholders need it to, then it needs to do everything in its power to keep publishers onside. Killing share counts might not see them neglecting Twitter all together, it’s too valuable for that, but it’s surely a sign that it’s not willing to compromise when it comes to their wants and desires. If this is the start of a greater trend, then Twitter may well be sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Unintended Consequences. When you break trust with your user base, you’d better watch out. I will admit that Google’s continue discontinuation and finally their cancelling of Google Reader caused me to swap to WordPress for my blog. Sure, Google has a right to make money and so does Twitter. Services always COST SOMETHING. But not giving us the option to pay a reasonable fee and cancelling the service is short-sighted. But one has to be very careful when upsetting the 1%. Klossner’s 90-9-1 principle shows that 1% of users on social media create most of the content. Nine percent are "active lurkers" with 90% "passive lurkers. The bottom line is that Facebook, Pinterest, and other platforms provide this data. Since Twitter does not, it may cause many of us to gravitate towards sharing on other social media. I’m not sure that it will be intentional. And face it, the $300-500 price tag is not an option that many average users are going to be willing to accept. Time will tell if the less spammy content on Twitter will result from killing the Twitter count button. Time will tell if people will stay on Twitter more or if they’ll naturally share on Facebook or something else more. Certainly, a whole slew of Twitter spammers are crying in their soup today, and I guess that is a good thing. Meanwhile, I’ll use Buzz Sumo and make up my mind about what I think. There’s no fix, just one Chrome extension or deep deep pockets that can fix your Twitter share button. We are yet again reminded that "free" has a price. And, for better or worse, the change will leave lots of annoyed birds out there. The post Can You Fix Twitter Counts? (and Why They Are Broken) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!