I. Love. Lists. I love making lists, reviewing my lists, and then checking things off. I am not an organized person by any means, but I am definitely a list person. So I was very excited to find several list creating websites this week while browsing through digital organizational tools. Remember the Milk and Thought Boxes are two great sites with to-do lists on steroids! Thought Boxes allows me to push my list making habits on others with great collaborative features to use with colleagues or students. And both sites keep track of my lists in one convenient place. As I mentioned before, I love lists, but I am not an organized person. Once, I had a student (who sits at the back of the classroom) come up to my desk, arm extended, holding a little yellow post-it note. As she approached me I got a quick glimpse of the note that was home to words like, "eggs", "butter", and "milk". The student said, "Mrs. Dean, I think I found your grocery list." I need organization in my life, I need tools like Thought Boxes and Remember the Milk.
Guess what!? I got an early Christmas present from my school district this week! I got an iPad!* (school issued and can be taken away from me at any given time) Although I know that "technically" this is not my iPad, I am super excited because it means that my school gets to pilot 1:1 iPads after Christmas break! Woot woot! So, all of the teachers at the Jr. High have been issued iPads to start working with, exploring and researching new ideas and lessons using the iPads, testing out apps, etc. We have a collaboration day scheduled for the 25th for all of the Jr. High teachers to get together share things that are "share-worthy" and learn new ways to use the iPads in the classroom. The goal of course (and the reason I have an iPad before my students) is to go into the new year prepared to have students using their iPads as learning tools rather than just toys. The timing of this seemed to have coincided brilliantly with this weeks EDU 5312 topic of Digital Organizational Tools. I cannot wait to share these links with my fellow educators. Below are a few things I've put together, or discovered, that I want to show at the collaboration meeting on the 25th. The ChatterPix video would be a great way for students to explain a concept or topic (the one below is my cat Sophie and my daughter singing her favorite song, but I can see the educational value in the app). To create the cartoon I used the app "Caption Distraction", and again, I was just playing around, but I can only imagine the possibilities in the classroom! I also looked into PicCollage and I already have ideas for using that app, along with this example of a "ShowMe" presentation (this one is not created by me, but a great sample of what is possible with this app).
To conclude this weekly blog post, I want to talk a little about Google Calendar. My school has switched over to Google accounts, so it is surprising that no one is using Google Calendar yet. What a handy little tool to keep everyone on the same page. Every week there are at least 2 different meetings (IEP, staff, parent), school related events, teachers covering other teachers during their plan periods, etc. I typically find out about these things via email and then I have to search through my emails to remember what day/time the event is. I would love if my school could utilize a shared Google Calendar where all staff could write in school-related events. As I was creating my own Google Calendar for the week's assignment, I was shocked to see that Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Being a history teacher I always like to discuss the history of Thanksgiving with my students on the Monday or Tuesday before break and I am always searching for new resources to use on this topic.
And of course, as a visual learner I love infographics!
Well, on that note, I better start working on my Thanksgiving grocery list!
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