My Personal Learning Network

Managing Workflow

After reading articles on managing workflow, including David Allen's article Mastering Workflow, I looked for ways to organize my own workflow. I tend to be a fairly organized person as is, but every now and then, things can get a little hectic and I find myself feeling overwhelmed. I've opted to utilize Google to help me organize my various tasks.  To-Do items have been listed on a Google Doc according to their priority level, important dates on my Google Calendar, and various e-mails have been labeled by importance in my Gmail using the folder labels and the star feature. Working through the process of collecting, processing, organizing, reviewing, and doing took time. I had to not just try and jump right into something, but really gauge the priority of each item. I think that using Allen's workflow process will help me to save time in the long run because it teaches me to prioritize and not worry about trying to do ten different things at once. This sort of mentality will undoubtedly help me to relax more when it comes to my daily to-do list. I do plan to continue this process of workflow management. Having everything in one general loaction, my Google account, and having things prioritized can only help me in the long run.

Social Networks

Ever since the Facebook craze first started when I was an undergrad student, I was a fan. I loved the up to the minute updates from friends and found that it made it so much easier to make plans with multiple people. I also enjoyed being able to collaborate with others about school work when needed. Since that time Facebook has grown and adapted at a rapid pace. Although I use it less now, I still find that it helps me to keep in contact with so many people since I moved out of my home state. I sometimes wonder how many friends I would have lost touch with if not for Facebook. On a personal level, I know that this social networking program has been beneficial to me.

As an 8th grade teacher, I am also very aware of the huge role that Facebook plays in the lives of teenagers. I have centered a class seminar around the topic and seen students respond quite passionately, whether for or against Facebook. My students also created what we called "low-tech" Facebook pages for the characters from the novel The Outsiders. Since Facebook is not yet an acceptable program in some schools, my students made Facebook pages of the characters on paper to analyze what a character like Ponyboy would have on his Facebook wall and how other characters would have communicated with him. While the kids loved the project, a few complained that it wasn't the real Facebook. However, at the middle school level we are cautioned against using it in schools because of the problems it leads to. Although many students would respond well to using Facebook in school, there are too many others who've been bullied, had fake accounts made, had accounts hacked, or just aren't allowed to access it. So, although I see many positives to using Facebook in the classroom, it is not something that I can manage well enough to ensure that students all use it correctly. Or at least, not just yet.

However, from the recent social networking lab, I learned that my view of what social networking is was in fact quite limited. It turns out there are so many more ways to use social networking than being dependent on Facebook. One of the programs that I really liked and can really see myself using is Ning. It seems like a great way to learn what other teachers are doing and connect with so many other educators. I noticed that there were teachers looking to Skype with other classes and I think such a thing would be a great experience. I also read about Edmodo. I had heard about it before, but it basically is the school-friendly version of Facebook from my understanding. I definitely plan to look into that further to see if it could be useful to my students. Finally I learned about LinkedIn. This seems like a great resource when job hunting or just for networking. The amount of social networks that exist are almost overwhelming at first. I hope that with time and experience I am able to utilize them to my professional and personal benefit!

Blogs vs. Traditional Web Pages

For my first blog post for my Educational Technology course at MSU, I have been asked to examine the differences between blogs and traditional web pages.

In my experience with my own classroom web page I have found that it is a very useful way to maintain a consistent resource for students and parents to find class information. However, to update the web page, although I use a very user-friendly site (weebly.com), it still takes mutiple steps and time to really make any changes to the site. With use, it has become a quicker process for me, but nothing is quite as quick as a blog. Blogs allow the user to instantly update whatever message they are striving to get across and to really have some back and forth communication with the readers. I think Blogger, inparticular, has made the process of becoming an immediate web author so easy that it can be accessed by just about anyone, regardless of how familiar they are with technology. This is great when it comes to education because it means that students could have a quick outlet to become actual "published" authors, without necessarily needing to be tech-saavy. Such a thing could be a great tool for a classroom because it allows students to find an authentic reason for writing when they have a real audience who could be reading. Web pages are great for getting basic information and documents out, but blogs create a much less formal space where writers and readers can constantly share updated information with just the click of a mouse!