I LOVE Google calendar!!!! I use it to organize my life between work, home, family, online classes, etc. Everyone is color coded (you are purple) so I know when there are webinars and assignments due. I send emails to people I need to invite to IEP's, family events, meetings, etc and they can respond. This calendar program is my life line!!!! I set up on individual calendar just for my classroom parents and I can update it monthly, or as needed. It has all their emails on it so I can make adjustments and be easily emailed to them as necessary. I LOVE my calendar!
I send out a beginning of the year letter to all my parents. This give all my parents the basics. I also send out a Daily Note to give updates on classroom activities. Half of my children are non-verbal and all but one have severe language issues that make very difficult for them to tell their family what their day entails. The Daily Note also gives them our weekly schedule, gives information on field trips, food donations for our cooking projects, etc. What is nice about this is that I can put this note together and post it on my website and parent will be able to get the information on their computer or phone maybe as they are driving to or from work or to share with their child and support discussions!
So I set up my Skype account per our assignment and then found that the people that I knew used it had changed over to Hangout in Google. So, I figured out Hangout and chatted with my friend Kathy about how many cookies I needed for our Food For Families "Cans for Cookies" theme on Tuesday. If a child brings a can they get a cookie at lunch. We have over 500 children in the building and so we need A LOT of cookies on Tuesdays. Last week over half the students brought a can on Tuesday. These were the cookies she was working on! Yum!!!!
So I learned a lot from this round "things". And I had my moments of frustrations when my blog would drop things (and yes, I had saved them) or wouldn't let me add a new post. Not sure why, closed and reopened, tried it from different angles, but maybe that's what you get when it is free. I do still like Weebly over all. So, when all this was happening this afternoon, I went back and added my comments right with the thoughts for each "thing". You will see more comments there.
Big picture, I am definitely learning a lot through this process. My parents are LOVING the website. They love to see the kids in action and are constantly commenting via email. Learning about the Cloud, Dropbox and Symbaloo will also be very useful for me. I am an "organizer" by definition and very visual. Having a place to put all the websites I use in Symbaloo is important so that I am not wasting time searching and researching for the same site in ten different places. School is so busy this year that I just need to find time to get it all in! I really like Google Docs but I am finding that very few of our staff are familiar with it and they are also so busy that a new "tool" is not something they are necessarily interested in learning. I was glad to see a few make the attempt. I got more emails and personal discussions than comments though! Everyone is on their own place when it comes to the technology journey! The Cloud and Dropbox are two things that administration is using more and more. I am glad that now I know what to do when Ellen puts something in Dropbox! Cha-ching!!!!! |
AuthorMy name is Deirdre Dannecker. I have been in education since 1981 and have taught K-6 in general education and special education. Presently I run a resource room with K-3 students. I love my job!!!! CategoriesArchives
April 2015
|