Getting things done

I have always been the person to have a pad of paper and a pencil by my bedside. I would always write my to do lists. When I finished a few items I would cross those off. Then I could create a new list on a post it or a scrap piece of paper with the remaining items and a few new ones. This process continues forever since there are always new items to be completed in my life. I would have a few small notebooks going on a once since just having the process of writing allowed me to prioritize even if I had a few lists going at once.

For this GTD lab I decided to use Google mail as a new process.

1. Collect: All emails are sent to my work gmail account. I use Google Calendar so all reminders for events are also sent to my email.

2. Process: The process was at first overwhelming because I have always been the person to either keep the email forever or delete it. So when emails began to pile up since I was not going to have these only two outcomes I became nervous.

3. Organize: Once I created labels to categorize each email into things started to fall into place. I create a label for each subject area, teams I am apart of for my school, parent emails, meap, and so on. I also was able to flip between my email and Google calendar to see what is going on with the school, my grade level, and I added things going on in my room.

4. Review:I feel that the process is already starting to help me because when I open my email I read the email and then moments later categorize it into a label. The reduces all the inbox emails and deleting something I may need at a later date. Currently, when I open my email all the labels are on the side with emails slotted into the corresponding area and the calendar has events highlighted depending on place (school, grade, classroom).

5. Do: I do feel that I will continue this process. It took a lot of time in the beginning since I needed to create all the labels. However, now the process is starting to fall into place is the structure is already put into place. I plan to even spend time doing this for my home email. I can create labels for this cep 810 class, coupons that I get, travel documents, and other. I am looking forward to this organization!

Social bookmarking

I have been familiar with using delicious since a previous class I had through MSU used this site. I went to Australia the summer of 2008 for a Pre-internship Study Abroad. I took two masters courses and lived and taught with an Australian teacher for a month. Our study abroad leader helped our group set up a delicious site where we all shared websites about Australia and teaching there. I used the site before I went there but when I came back the life of student teaching took over and I have not used it since.

Unlike learning a bike, remembering how to use it did not come right back to me. I was able to add some sites, but need to find enough time to really utilize it. I have in my browser sites divided by subject area and grade level that I can move into delicious so I can access these sites both from work and from home. Currently this is what my delicious site looks like and I hope that I can add many more sites quickly.

Social networking and my life

After exploring Ning, LinkedIn, and Facebook I feel that these social networking sites fit best into my life in the professional aspect. I usually spend so much time looking for resources that align with the curriculum that I teach, technology to be using during tech time, and "googling" things that time flies by without being as productive as I could be.

However, using some of these social networking site can allow me to visit one site and see suggested items to explore or unitize in my classroom compared to just searching for them individually.

I know that my district uses Twitter and Facebook to send out messages about great things that are going on our district so that press releases are positive. I taught summer school and a teacher took video on his I Phone of students putting up a tent and then writing about it. This was then shared on our Facebook page for families to see unique opportunities available through the summer school program.

I already use Voicethread in my classroom. Students will write and illustrate works. Last year we made class books on homophones and contractions. Students then recorded their voices to go with their page of the class book. We also completed shared writing where students recorded their voices to go with the sentence they contributed to our shared writing. After reading the Educational Networking Wiki, I was thinking about how I can use both this technology and others with my students. One individual shared that kindergartners wrote a class book in America and the same aged children in Turkey collaborated in this book with recording their voices in their language. My 4th grade classroom is reading buddies with a kindergarten classroom in my school. The partnerships could work on a class book and record voices to the book so that both classrooms would benefit from its use. This also would be an opportunity for my to show other teachers in the school Voicethread and how uniquely it could be used in kindergarten when children are just learning how to read.

Continuing to follow my RSS feeder

Day 3

I am spending my Friday night with a nice cup of hot apple cider grading and working on coursework. I am noticing that all but one of the blogs from 4th grade classrooms have not been updated to reflect upon today's school day. There were 128 new feeds when I entered my Google Reader last night compared to 56 tonight. The Tech and Learning feed had three new information links that I viewed today. All three of them brought me to the main page but I was able to explore from there my interested. I looked into "best practices" and "ideas and opinions." I felt that I kept getting directed to the same page which did not have articles that interested me. However, using the Google Reader saves time since I am able to see the title and quickly browse the articles and posts from blogs. I found it helpful since not only is a teacher's time valuable but most individual's time is limited.

I really enjoyed being able to connect to a professional learning community outside of my school. I was able to see what other teachers at not only my grade level but in all ends of teaching are doing in their classrooms and strives they have made in the digital community. I especially was interested in the feed from ISTE Connects- Educational Technology about the movie "Waiting for Superman." My Superintendent mentioned the movie on our district's opening day and I have not previously heard anything about the movie. Since it came up on the RSS page I was able to dig a lot deeper into what the movie was actually about and even watch a movie trailer.

From my exploration these past few days with the RSS reader I plan to share the use of it with teacher and parents at my school. I have a small handful of parents that consistently use the internet and we keep in close contact with sharing education sites. If we were able to inform each other using the Google Reader it would cut down on emails between individual families. I can also do the same with peers at my school. At a conference this morning, we were given many sites on autism. I could look for blogs and if I could follow these sites and then add them to a folder on my Google Reader. They then would either be able to be shared or if fellow teachers decided to also have a Google Reader we would be able to share items.

Following my RSS Reader

Day 1

At first, I felt that using the Google RSS Reader was a little overwhelming. I had difficulty finding blogs and other feeds to apply to. However, I started to think about the websites that I visit most often and from there I was able to add new feeds to my Reader. I am always checking Scholastic, Apple, and the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs). All of these sites I was able to add to my Reader. Then I became creative in my google searches. I first searched 4th blogs in Michigan and there was not many possibles. Following this search, I made the quest more board and looked for solely 4th grade blogs since I am a 4th grade teacher. I added five 4th grade blogs. The first day that I added these feeds was yesterday and when I was searching through them I felt as if I was reading a newspaper. There were many headlines and content to dig deeper into. I first was drawn to the feeds from Webblogg-ed and the GLCEs since that day I had just been at a curriculum meeting for my district, in which I would be helping to align the GLCEs to the new Core Standards for math in 3rd and 4th grade. I was able to see that Webblogg-ed seems to be much more updated than the GLCEs.

Day 2

Coming into today I feel much more opened minded about using the Google Reader. I was able to take time to look through each of the feeds that I receive. I paid special attention to the five 4th grade blogs that I added to my feed. Two of the five have not updated posts since March and May. I did not find these too helpful since much of the information was outdated. However, two of the other feeds are actually from the same school. I was amazed to see the amount of information shared with families and to the degree of technology used. There were websites with math games and more shared with families, daily homework, spelling words, videos used in school, and even on the actual blog a Twitter following of dates and assignment due dates. I posted a comment on Mr. O'Brien's 4th grade blog about how useful I found it as a fellow teacher. The communication was very clear and creative.

I scrolled through past posts and have saved many of the website games and videos to share with my 4th grade classroom.

I felt that using the Goggle Reader today was much more manageable since I was more open minded. I scanned each one and found the short headlines helpful since I could quickly view the items I wanted to learn more about and those I was not as interested in.

The Scholastic feed was especially appealing since the videos stood out. I did not know that authors record themselves reading books that they have published. I plan on sharing some of these videos with my readers since I am always looking for ways to keep engagement in reading. I have many students that follow series and will be interested to see the author of 39 Clues come to life in the video shared.

I have a classroom website that I update each week on homework, spelling words, newsletters and calendar information. I also have sidebars for each of the subject areas that have games and helpful websites. When my class goes to tech time they know how to login to my Moodle page and from there can click on the site we will be using for the day compared to typing in the long address. I plan to add more sites to my webpage and even some videos that I discovered during my exploration of my RSS Reader today. I found a rap place value video and also a rounding video I think would be engaging to my class.

The differences between traditional web pages and blogs

After reading and exploring blogs and web pages I have discovered that a main difference between the two are that web pages are created to be viewed and used by others by using the link and information already provided. Blogs are more interactive and collaborative. Individuals can comment to posts and each and every page created. Communication between both the creator and viewers of the blog can be seen on posts and also regulated by the administrator who created the blog. I created my own classroom website so that families and students could access information such as copies of homework, useful websites, and calendar dates. I used a blog during my TE 401 class when I was sharing a project and wanted feedback on my work and also for collaboration.