The Cool Teacher Podcast
By Chris Haskell & Barbara Schroeder
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Podcast Description
Join Chris Haskell and Barbara Schroeder from Boise State University every week as they deliver the tools, tips, and trends that make your classroom a cool and engaging place. Live broadcasts every Wednesday at 3 pm Mountain Time on ustream.tv and of course, audio podcasts you can subscribe to in iTunes.
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CleanEpisode 75: Shameless Self-Promotion | Welcome back to another episode of the Cool Teacher Podcast. Today Barbara talks about the importance of patience in teaching an old dog new tricks--specifically her dad how to use a computer! It's a challenge starting from ground zero in teaching older people how to use computers, but it sure is worthwhile. Barbara provides some helpful advice in how to get started: (1) Start with simple, meaningful tasks, (2) Take breaks, (3) Provide encouraging feedback. Chris talks about his cool 3D Game Lab tool and the 3D Game Lab Camp. Find out more about 3D Game Lab at http://3dgamelab.org.mmoguildsites.com/ Welcome to Allison Yager, one of our EDTECH students, who is visiting Boise and came to watch us record the Cool Teacher Podcast. We LOVE OUR FANS. Thanks for joining us for another live episode. Remember, you can always subscribe to our podcast in iTunes! And as always, we love feedback, so submit your comments below. | 4/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 74: Classroom as a Game | Welcome back to an episode devoted to springtime! Yes, spring is in the air here at Boise State, and the Cool Teachers want to tell you about ways you can celebrate this season of rebirth and renewal--in your own classroom. In today's episode, Barbara talks A LOT about the new Nintendo 3DS, what it is and why it is so cool, and how we might consider using it in the classroom. For starters, read a recent blog post about the Nintendo DS and ways teachers might use it in the classroom: http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/nintendods_classroom/ Chris tells us about his and Lisa Dawley's new 3D Game Lab: http://3dgamelab.com. Sign up today to participate in this exciting new way to integrate gaming into your curriculum AND meet State Standards. Watch the video below to find out more: Then, Barbara tells us why the Nintendo 3DS might be one of the best mobile devices students could use in the elementary and middle school classrooms. We would love to hear from you and find out what you are doing with technology in your classroom. Are you using the new Nintendo 3DS in your classroom, for instance? Chris finishes with an explanation of Chorewars (http://chorewars.com) and will now start cleaning his house. Thank goodness! As always, thanks for listening and please post your comments and ideas. We love hearing from you. | 4/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 73: It’s the information age, Barbara! | Why do we teach the way we do and why do students have to attend classes face-to-face? These are some of the questions Barbara asks in her segment, "Is Higher Ed Ready for the Challenge?" Citing old-fashioned structures and false assumptions, Barbara urges institutions of higher learning to look more closely and critically at how classes are offered and how semesters are structured. Listen to this lively conversation with Barbara and Chris and learn more. Chris introduces us to Khan Academy, an excellent online repository of over 2100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises teachers can use to save time and help students learn concepts in other ways. Find out more about Salman Khan and his interesting story by visiting the site and watching the video. Remember to visit our Facebook page at http://fb.com/coolteachers and use the hashtag #coolteachers when you tweet something about us or something we'd like to see. Call our listener line with questions or comments. Comment on our blog posts. Let us know how we are doing. We love our fans! | 3/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 72: There is No Thread! | In today's episode, Barbara shares her ideas on how to publish and share private videos with a class group. You can download her PDF tutorial on how to do this here: http://itcboisestate.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/topsecret.pdf Chris introduces us to an excellent resource for teachers--online training videos: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/ This is a great way to save time and find video tutorials that can help your students or answer your own questions. Want to know why colleges have 16-week semesters? Hear all about it during Barbara's discussion of the Carnegie Unit. And listen next week when Barbara and Chris discuss their revolutionary ideas for changing how we offer courses. Finally, Barbara answers Chris's questions, so find out more ways students can share private videos. Thanks for listening, and as always, send us your comments and questions. We love our fans! | 3/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 71: Your PEEPs or Your POPs | Welcome to another episode of the Cool Teacher Podcast. Today, we are joining members of TeacherStream, an online network of K-16 teachers. You can request an account on TeacherStream at http://teacherstream.ning.com and join in their discussions. As you will find out in today's episode there are many advantages in being a member of a social network, especially one geared toward your interests. Barbara talks about leveraging your Professional Online Presence (POP), encouraging new users of social tools to start by investigating their current online presence. She will help you get started with a Facebook page, a LinkedIn profile, and joining an appropriate social network, such as TeacherStream. Join networks that align with your interests. Here are some other tools that can help you get started: WordPress (http://wordpress.com) Twitter (http://twitter.com) WiseStamp (http://wisestamp.com) Rapportive (http://rapportive.com) Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) Flickr (http://flickr.com) YouTube (http://youtube.com) authorstream (http://authorstream.com) SlideShare (http://slideshare.net) CiteULike (http://www.citeulike.org) Zotero (http://zotero.org) Google Social Search Chris tells us more about TeacherStream, what it is and how you can benefit from joining this group of motivated educators. All you need to do is request an account to join. Next, Barbara provides some important Facebook Facts, a great primer if you've never used Facebook before, or if you have been concerned about privacy issues. Finally, we top today's episode with Chris's discussion of http://mmoguildsites.com. We realize 20 minutes is a very short time to discuss all of these tools. Post your comments and let us know how you are using social networks in your profession. Thanks for listening. | 3/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 70: Chris has apptism and it’s itchy! | Wow, lot's of stuff happening in techland! For starters, the new iPad was announced today, so Chris will tell you all about it. (I want one in white, if anyone is interested.) We start today's podcast with a discussion of Darkslide, a Flickr app that will enable total interaction with Flickr using only your iPod or iPhone. Yes, the new iPad is coming out March 11 and we are excited to test out the new features. Wanna find mobile apps and are frustrated with the iTunes store? Go to apptism.com and use this fabulous search engine/database/social network to find the app you are looking for. Read reviews, articles, subscribe to RSS feeds on the app and then think before you purchase that next app! Finally, Barbara reviews her ideas for using QR codes in the classroom. Read her blog: http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com. | 3/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 69: Did you see how she did that? | Barbara and Chris are back for another week of fun and frivolity! In today's podcast, Barbara talks about Google Goggles--yes, Google Goggles, and 7 ways to use it in the classroom. Why use Google Goggles? Well, searching with a mobile device is a little more challenging than a laptop. However, Google has made it easier and FUN with their Google Mobile app. Within this app you will find Voice Search, a marvelous little tool that allows you to search for online content with your voice. But what if you see something and want to search for more information about it? That’s where Google Goggles comes in . . . With your mobile phone camera and Google Mobile search, you can take a picture of an object (such as a landmark, book, text, wine, logos) and Google will scan it for you, returning some links that identify it and provide more information. I wrote about how you might use Google Goggles in the classroom in one of my recent blog posts, so read more about it there! If you have never read the Horizon Report, then you are in for a treat. This excellent report lists technology tools and trends that are on the "horizon," presented in various time frames. You can download and read the new Horizon Report 2011 at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf. Check it out and see if any of the tools might be useful in your classroom. And, of course, write or call us to let us know about it. If you want to use a cool technology that is easy, effective, and not well-known, then begin to explore QR Codes. Again, you can read more about this technology on Barbara's blog, Technology Teacher, along with several ways you might want to incorporate them in the classroom. Included in this post are suggestions for a QR code generator and QR code reader for your mobile device. We end today's podcast with a Tip of the Week video from Chris, about embedding PhotoBucket albums. Simple and very useful. Well, that's it for this week. Please post your comments to this post, call us, or send us an email. We would LOVE to hear from you. | 2/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 68: All About Birds | Spring is in the air! Barbara and Chris talk about birds and all of the cool tools you can use as a teacher to get your students excited about them. And we are not talking about Angry Birds, either! Here's a great site that will encourage your students to participate in this weekend's Great Backyard Bird Count: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc Check out this site and then create a bird counting activity for your students. When they get back from the holiday break, you can spend some time going over what they found. Chris does a video on Little Bird Tales (http://littlebirdtales.com), a fabulous tool teachers can use to help younger students become more engaged in reading and writing. It's a digital storytelling tool for youngsters. Check it out, teachers! Continuing on our bird theme, Barbara discusses ebird.org a real-time, online checklist program, launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. Access this site to discover rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and migration patterns. We finish this week's episode with a great anti-plagiarism software, plagiarisma.com, which can help your students check their own writing, too. Don't be a plagiarisma . . . or an angry bird. Let us know how you are using any of these tools in the classroom, and have an excellent rest of the week. | 2/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 67: Tirades and Tantrums | Chris and Barbara are back again, with some great ideas on how you can use technology tools in your classroom. Visualizing.org To start, Chris introduces us to visualizing.org, a website that will help you and your students make sense of complex data through visualization. On this site you can explore datasets to create your own visualization, view other visualizations, and upload and share your completed data visualization. Explore this site and see if there are any visualizations that would augment an instructional unit. iTunes U Next, Barbara talks about iTunes U and what is new. Well, not really, really new, but new just the same. For instance, you can now access free ebooks directly through iTunes U. This eliminates the need to search for these free books from websites, enabling the user to quickly locate, download, and read ebooks. And Harvard is now on iTunes U, enabling other learners to listen to popular faculty, such as Professor Michael Sandel's "Justice" course, an introduction to moral and political philosophy. Many K-12 schools and institutions of higher learning now have public content on iTunes U. Use this valuable, rich tool to locate content that can augment a course topic or unit, for instance, and expose your students to fascinating and knowledgeable experts in the field. It's a virtual field trip to just about any classroom you could imagine. A Case for Gaming In "A Case for Gaming," Chris shows off his knowledge about gaming and why it is an essential component in today's classroom. He discusses how teachers can use students' experiences with digital games to expand and enrich the curriculum. It's an interesting conversation, and one that teachers should be having with their colleagues and administrators. Google Moderator Finally, Barbara talks about Google Moderator, a tool that will collect questions, suggestions, or ideas on a topic. There are many ways this tool could be very valuable in the classroom, such as collecting information from students, having students ask questions, and then gauging which of the submissions are the most popular. Participate in Our Google Moderator Series So, the Cool Teachers would like you to answer a question for them: How might you use iTunes U to enhance teaching and learning? We created a Google Moderator series for this question and here is the link: http://goo.gl/mod/SUU0 Just go to that link, sign in with your Google credentials, and add your suggestions. We encourage you to vote on other ideas and make additional comments as needed. You can even attach a YouTube video related to your post. Try it out and then think about ways you can use this tool in your classroom. As always, thanks for watching and/or listening to our weekly podcasts. We value our listeners and our followers. | 2/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 66: Anything but normal | In today's episode, Chris shows us the amazing Xtranormal.com and a video that our own Jerry Foster created about our Edtech program at Boise State. Then, I surprise Chris with some new tech tools I have been using. One of my previous students, Jason Janczak (pronounced "jan-zik"), sent me the information about Google Search Stories. And then Dr. Chareen Snelson sent me the link to fodey.com, where you can generate a newspaper clipping and other cool images with text. Or how about this cute little talking squirrel . . . I really had fun with Google Search Stories and immediately took to it, creating a quick advertisement for our Edtech Department at Boise State. Then, I thought, what the heck, I'll make a search story about the various tools my students can use to conduct research. Check out Google Search Stories and make a video to see how quick and easy it is: http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories How can you use Google Search Stories in the classroom? Well Jason Brunken writes, "Introductions and presentations on current issues and events, short presentations on products or inventions, or research reports and presentations on famous people. It's cool, best thing about it though, it is free and easy-to-use." Chris revisits Twitter in the classroom, too. How can you use these tools in the classroom and beyond? Comment on our blog, call our listener hotline, or just send us an email. We're listening. Thanks to everyone for continuing to send us new and refreshing tools to use and think of applications for the classroom. Keep sending us stuff and we'll keep doing our podcasts. | 2/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 10 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Cool Teachers are the Bomb
Barbara and Chris shine light on technology in an entertaining and informative weekly podcast. How they can have the time to figure all this out is a mystery to me but I enjoy their content.
Bleeding Edge
They've suggested some great apps and ways to use them in my high school classroom.
Great Podcast!
Very informative and great for educators and students. "The Cool Teacher Podcast" is a must for any educator!!!






