Organizing the Organizers

Organizing the Organizers

Ok...so the title of this blog is a little narrow for the topics I'd like to address, but it definitely reflects the feeling I had both during and EdCamp Institute at Hamline. While I generally consider myself to be fairly tech savvy, I was a little embarrassed how much I didn’t know. Even since the conference, I’ve struggled to manage the constant stream of new articles filled with, ideas, inspirational stories, useful tools, and current education news that I’ve begun to access through my growing Twitter PLN and own exploration that the conference helped inspire. Thus the title of the post. I’m still working through the seemingly endless list of bookmarked sites that I filed away to look at “later”.

This has led me to two general conclusions: (although I’m still coming to terms with actually living by them).

1. I will never catch up. I will always be surprised by what I don’t know. BUT, I cannot let it consume me or distract me from the other responsibilities of a teacher, husband, friend, son, etc. In the past few weeks I’ve already spent countless hours floating through the cyber space trying to take it all in. However, when I look at the investment of time I’ve made, I have NOT made a reasonable rate of return on actual lessons, concrete ideas and plans to implement all of my new found knowledge come September. In my mind this is dangerous and I have to be careful to some framework to guide my time on the web.

2. While there are many AMAZING tools and resources, I must determine which ones I will reasonably use. There are simply too many to keep track of and reasonably expect to use them effectively. This will take some reflective thought on my part to determine what tools fit my style, curriculum, needs and students. With that being said there are a couple tools that I am toying with to help manage this better AND to see if I want my students to use them.

Right now, LiveBinders is very intriguing to me for both my students and myself. It’s versatile, user friendly and can be organized by each user to suit their needs or style.

Another resource I am trying out to help me categorize the various bookmarks I have is Symbaloo (http://www.symbaloo.com/). While I like the format, there is also the simplicity of using Google Bookmarks and the traditional folder filing system that I’m already familiar with.