If you can’t see this slideshow in your RSS reader or email, then click here. App Smashing has become the conversation rage of late. The best explanation I can give you was already given by Jon Corippo in his "App Smashing FALL CUE" presentation. Jon quotes Greg Kulowiec to define app smashing as: Created content with one app Created content with another app or apps Merge content together (smashing) Publish the content to the web. I do this when I look up quotes online (Safari) and then pull them into Quoter, then send them to Instagram to share them. Each app does a different part of the workflow. I love the linear flow and hyperlinks in Jon’s presentation so I hope you’ll take time to flip through it. (H/T Darren Kuropatwa for liking this on Slideshare which then popped this up to my slideshare homepage.) If this interests you: Follow Greg Kulowiec who seems to be quoted everywhere you hear people talk about App Smashing. (Rightly so, he coined the term) Richard Wells (@ipadwells) also has an excellent overview of why you should app smash. (Hear Richard talk about iPads and the SAMR Model) Richard has some fantastic graphics such as the one shown below explaining his smashes. Consider having your students smash and create a similar chart. An App Smash graphic from Richard Wells, he has tons of them. TIP: If you want to find amazing things just follow people like John and Darren on Slideshare. (Here’s mine.) He has so many great presentations as do many others. Inspiration is just a click away on slideshare. (Plus, now you can even create slides on Slideshare using Haiku Deck - how crazy is that? The post App Smashing from Jon Corripo [Slide] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

While studying convergence, my students "invent" a new technology. They are to predict what technologies will converge to make new ones. I’m always in awe of what they invent. I want to share this one with you for several reasons: Eyeshot, R’s product, is a contact lens that takes pictures. While likely more than 5 years away for contacts, it is already here with Google Glass. This was shot entirely on an iPhone. For those of you who discount mobile devices, don’t. This student sees the world so differently. If I want to appreciate the grandeur of nature or simple surroundings, I rewatch the video so I can better appreciate life itself. This student didn’t know her talent until I gave her the chance to show it. Does your school let students invent and create their own movies? My students are a gift to me. They teach me far more than I teach them. Sometimes I just get to sit back and say, Wow. This movie is one of those moments. The post Eyeshot advertisement [Video] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Robots are everywhere, they open our garage doors, vacuum our floors and if you are lucky they even park your car.  Until recently there weren’t many robots in the classroom and now I couldn’t imagine approaching STEM without them.  Using the Sphero robots in my after school programming club has opened my eyes to both what can be taught using simple robots and how to do it.  I want to share with you some tools and tips for teaching with robots. This post is authored by guest blogger, Sam Patterson. In addition to being a fun, create guy — Sam is a K-5 Technology Teacher who blogs at www.mypaperlessclassroom.com and shares puppet videos at www.edupuppets.com. You can find him on Twitter at @SamPatue. I love the Sphero and have one in my classroom. We’ll be giving away one of them in the comments on this post. Just reply how you’re teaching computer science or STEM and how you’d use a sphero and Sam and I will pick one of you! Sphero did not sponsor this post. They did, however, give me one last year and I fell in love with it. They gave me one to give away to a lucky reader (see below.) Happy Hour of Code week! 4 Tips to Start Teaching with Sphero Robots 1. Start simple. While I have a class set of Lego NXT robots, it is challenging to put together a good lesson I can do with several classes with these robots due to their complexity.  Both Sphero Robots and Bee Bots are very simple robots and make content integration accessible to all teachers. As a tech integration specialist for grade K-5 I want a robot that a math teacher is comfortable using.  Sphero has several programming interfaces that make meaningful content area application easy without a steep learning curve. 2. Follow a guide. While Sphero is a connected toy, the Orbotix company has free curriculum that models meaningful content use.  The lesson published as part of their SPRK education program are excellent models for meaningful in class use.  My favorite lesson is the Rate Time and Distance lesson. Instead of learning a formula and plugging in values from a series of word problems about Dr. Patterson on his bicycle, now my students program a robot, observe the results, change the program, and observe the changes.  The math activity runs much more like a science experiment.  The students are guided in a process of discovery about the relationship between rate time and distance. Question: Win your own sphero by commenting on this post about how you’re teaching Computer Science or STEM now and how you’d use a Sphero with your students. In case of a tie, we’ll pick the one who responded first. You can leave a comment by clicking here. 3. Support play. When my students begin using Sphero, I give them time to explore what the robot can do, and they have fun.  I don’t have them begin by all doing the same thing.  I show them about one-third of the controls and then I give them some challenges.  Discovery is an important part of learning, and if I didn’t give them the time to explore they would be playing while I wanted them to explore rate time and distance. 4. Invent your own lesson. I appreciate the lessons Orbotix has written because they clearly illustrate how these robots can be used in lessons that support common core standards in math and science.  These lessons can provide any teacher with a great starting point for designing their own robot augmented lessons. Sphero is one way to do hour of code. This school ordered Tshirts. Remember that while the "official" hour of code is in December, you can do Hour of Code any time you want. You can have an hour of code once a month or a week. You decide. Great program and lots of resources! 4 Top Tools for Robot Augmented Instruction 1. Tape. Masking tape or blue tape can be really helpful to organize a small herd of robots in a class.  I use tape to mark the start and finish lines for robot races, and to designate the goal for a game of robot boccie ball.  Tape goers down quick and comes up easily (as long as you don’t leave it there too long.) 2. YouTube. There are so many great ideas about how to use a Sphero robot on Youtube.  This video inspired me to give my students a design challenge to build and race Sphero chariots. 3. A label maker. Once I had 12 Spheros for my classes, I labeled each one with a number and then I associated each Sphero with only one iPad.  This made it easy to start class, I activated Bluetooth on iPads 1-12 and woke up the robots, within a minute they were all associated and ready to roll. Pedagogy Pro Tip The Sphero programming interface MacroLab enables a teacher to email a program to a student.  this means as I assemble my lesson I can create scaffolding for my diverse learners by writing starter programs for my students. This makes the lesson accessible to all the kids in my class and allows me to deliver extra support discretely, keeping those students involved in the learning without asking them to single themselves out for more help. As you explore how robots can ad to the learning experiences in your classroom, I hope you share your journey with us here.  Everytime I show teachers what I am doing with these simple robots they give me more amazing ideas about how Sphero can support lessons in geometry, math and even color theory. Want to win your own sphero? Just share with us in the comments what you’re doing now and what you want to do with sphero. Sam and I will pick one of you to win your own sphero for your classroom or club. Good luck! (We’ll pick the winner around December 15. In case of a tie, we’ll pick the person who responded first.)   The post Top Tips for Teaching with Robots (using Sphero) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Picasso was known to be the kind of person who literally sucked the energy out of everyone who spent time with him. Austin Kleon shares this story in his book Show Your Work! (see the book review). Kleon says: "Picasso’s granddaughter Marina claimed that he [Picasso] squeezed people like one of his tubes of oil paint." In what some might call the pre-Facebook version of "unfriending," Romanian Sculptor Constantin Brancusi said he would no longer be around Picasso. After a day in Picasso’s presence, Brancusi said he had nothing left with which he could create his own works. Meanwhile, Picasso would paint late into the night while everyone he interacted with that day was exhausted. Picasso was a human vampire: he sucked the life out of others.  (He was also a creative genius, so interpret this as you will.) I think it is helpful to reflect if we have vampires in our own lives. Do you have someone who is squeezing the life out of you? Here are some questions I ask myself as I reflect upon my relationships. 7 Ways to Know if Someone is Squeezing the Life Out of You How do you feel after you hang out with someone — energized or listless? Do you find yourself upset and unable to concentrate after spending time with them? Does this person constantly tell you upsetting gossip or other things that make it hard to do your job or function? Does this person listen to you? When they do are they encouraging and positive or do they prod you to go deeper into your negativity? Does this person ever have anything positive or invigorating to say? Are you a better person for having this person in your life? Do you look forward to talking to this person or find yourself dreading them? Aren’t We All Vampires Sometimes? OK, I know what some of you are thinking — you can’t avoid colleagues who are vampires and if your boss is one — then watch out. But I hope you’ll consider this in addition to how you already think about your relationships. Some people thrive on drama. Others thrive on taking their baggage and asking you to carry it around. Others are just negative Nellie’s who forget that you seem to find what you look for in the world. We’re all mistake makers but some people stew in the mistakes of others. At the risk of mixing metaphors - let me mix up some sulphuric acid. Listening to some people for very long is like drinking sulphuric acid - it will eat you from the inside out. We all get negative sometimes. I totally do it too. But some people major in minor annoyances. If whining deserved a gold medal, they’d be Michael Phelps. They live it. Stew in it. Wear it between their eyebrows and on their face. If you love that person and can help them turn around, then great. But if they are vampires — look out!!! They will suck the life out of you -(and likely your love of teaching with it). The Case for Necessary Endings I really do believe as Henry Cloud says in his book Necessary Endings  that there are times we must make necessary endings in relationships. Surely, there are relationships you cannot easily sever. I don’t want you to use this post as an excuse to walk away from parents, spouses, or siblings. Those are typically relationships worth nurturing and improving. But there are some vampires you can leave. While it is excruciatingly hard and can be ridiculously expensive if you’ve intertwined yourself financially with someone, life is  too short to have close relationships with vampires. You can work with them. You can be around them — but do you want to have them as one of your closest friends? What Do You Do with Vampires? First, acknowledge there’s a problem. Can you go for 24 or 48 hours without interacting with this person? Is your life better or worse? If this is a person who you have to work with — how can you guard yourself? If you think this is a person you need to get away from read Necessary Endings - Dr. Henry Cloud gives great advice in this book. If you think you’re the vampire (who hasn’t been at some point) then acknowledge that you want to change. There are books, videos, and  resources to help you with your thinking. Because thinking leads to what you say and how you live. If the classic book The Power of Positive Thinking is too Pollyanna for you, then try The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success by Andy Andrews. Lessons Learned on the USS Petri Dish One last example I’ll give you is a cruise my family went on this past year. We were so excited to be on the cruise - but by the third day of the cruise everyone (but me) was in their stateroom sick. In two cabins we had cases of strep, flu, pink eye, and mono — and my husband had three of them at once! This cruise ship is just like a toxic person or work environment. Can you live in it ? Yes. Can you possibly stay healthy in it? Yes. Is it hard to stay healthy when surrounded by disease? Absolutely! You are more likely to get negative yourself if you are around the disease of negativity all the time. Anything can go viral: vision, joy, and especially hopelessness. You can be a colleague but you don’t have to be a best friend. If I have a wish for you in 2015, it would be to avoid the vampires. They’ll suck the life out of you. There will be nothing left for you to live on yourself. And if the vampire is you — you can change that too! The post 7 Ways to Keep Others from Squeezing the Life Out of You appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Free Download: 5 Steps to Internet Safety Vicki Davis - on Docstoc I am amazed at how many people shorten their Internet safety guidelines by saying "Stop, Block, and Tell." As I’ve shared in both of my books, this is a grave disservice. When you block, it often deletes evidence of what happened. Students should: Stop, Screenshot, Block, Tell and Share. Some time a go, my sister helped me create a 5 Steps to Internet Safety Poster. You can download it for free. If you need a full sized poster as others have asked, I set up a store on CafePress that will make the posters for you. If you’re a non profit school I give you permission to copy and share these as a way to help you. (If you’re for profit, you’ll need to contact me.) I embedded it below for you. 5 Steps to Internet Safety The post Free Download: 5 Steps to Internet Safety [Link] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

In the end it didn’t seem to matter what the distraction was during recall as long as subjects had had a distraction during learning. Everybody who had been distracted in both learning and recall performed better than those who were distracted while learning but undistracted during recall. An important finding was that the effect Song measured did not depend on keeping the external context - for instance the ambient surroundings - consistent. There just had to be the same degree of distraction at both times. Another task is to figure out what might be going on in the brain to allow divided attention to be a boost for recall, rather than a hindrance for learning. "For now my working hypothesis is that this creates an internal representation in which divided attention is associated with the motor learning process, so it can work as an internal cue," Song said. Song said she is curious about whether understanding the effect could improve rehabilitation. It may be better, for instance, to help patients learn to walk not only in the clinic, but amid the degree of distraction they would encounter on their neighborhood sidewalk. Psych Central News Brown University (quoted on Psych Central, December 10, 2014), This fascinating research is worth a read if you’re following neuroscience. Distractions may not be as problematic as you think. The question seems to be whether the learning environment is similar to the environment where you will recall. Fascinating research. I look forward to my researcher friends digging deeper so we can all understand more. The post Distractions Help You Learn? [Quote] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

People are not your most important asset. The right people are. (loc 238) If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great. (loc 712) The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake (loc 972) Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people. (loc 980) Yes, leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted. (loc 1286) Jim Collins Good to Great (Harper Collins Publishers, 2011), This epic book has so many applications for schools. Any organization that wants to be great should have leaders who understand how to be a "level 5 leader" and how to take the organization from good to great. Hint: It is not the flamboyant that make the great leaders. It is also rarely people from "outside". Great read for all leaders in all professions. The post Good to Great - The Right People [Quote] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Want to help your youngest kids (4 and up) learn the basics of coding? There’s a screen-free way to learn and play called Robot Turtles Game.  I know some of you like to find things for the young children that are not in front of the screen. This would be something that you might want to consider. From the company: Robot Turtles was a Kickstarter sensation, graced the front page of the New York Times and has garnered awards since its national introduction last summer, including Teachers’ Pick by Scholastic Instructor and Best Toy for Kids by the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association. Robot Turtles was invented by Seattle software entrepreneur Dan Shapiro who wanted to spend quality time with his then four-year-old twins and share what he feels is his single greatest superpower - the skill of programming. I received a copy  of Robot Turtles over the summer and it was a delight. Since we’re all celebrating Hour of Code (and we’re all shopping for presents), I thought some of you might want to know about it. A good game for young classrooms too. My Amazon Affiliate Link: Robot Turtles Game Or, you can go to their website to learn more: http://www.thinkfun.com/robotturtles/ The post Coding for Kids: Robot Turtles Boardgame appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

This Ted-ED video uses Van Gogh’s painting "Starry Night" to explain turbulence. Remember that there are lesson plans around these and you can customize lessons for your students if you are using the flipped classroom or in-flipped methods of teaching. Level up a little bit every day. I challenge you to head over to Ted-Ed and find at least one video you can use with your students. You might be surprised! There are some new anatomy lessons on the liver and lungs and so many other concepts. If you don’t know where to start, visit the Frequently Asked Questions about Creating a Lesson on TED-ED. The post The Unexpected Math of Turbulence via Van Gogh [Video] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

The strength of a nation lies in the homes of its people. Abraham Lincoln Springs in the Valley (Harper Collins Publishing, 2010), Such truth. We need to reinforce and help our homes be strong. We must partner with parents to raise up a generation of well educated, well rounded, hard working people. Priorities matter. It isn’t always about having everything but instead, helping students learn to overcome anything. Times are not easy and homes are more important than ever. I’m a fan of parents. Good parents are heroes as are good teachers. When we partner together, great things happen. Teaching isn’t easy. Neither is parenting. As parents and teachers learn to appreciate one another, we build a connection that helps our children succeed. The post Abraham Lincoln - Homes [Quote] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.