How Do You Organize?

I am not sure when it happened but I know it had to do with trial and error.  After years of trying new things and working on ways to improve, I found that one thing worked:  Google!    The integration of the tools created makes for an easy way to manage what I need.  From calendar to collaboration, Google has helped me organize my tasks, information, and daily challenges to make my life easier.

A few years back I thought buying a fancy smartphone would do the trick in organization.  NOPE!  I had to work on using the Google items to ensure that my family and myself would be at the right place at the right time.

If Google would have me and I lived in California, I would love to work for them.  Google is full of innovative, intellectual, and creative people that uses the facilities as a think tank that generates such interesting tools.  The bigger they get the more then innovate and help to shape the work place for many places.

I am thankful for my failures or I would not have learned about the tools I use daily in Google!
What are your opinions??

Where are your Resources?

I ask this question because I am finding many are stating some type of technology as the answer.  To some point I agree, but I believe resources can be found somewhere right in the next room.

Resources are the people, co-workers, colleagues, or cohorts that surround you are where you go for anything.  From personal to professional, those that we are with everyday are the most valuable resources we can find.  Think of all of the tasks completed on a daily basis and how many of them require the conversation that starts with, "Could you help me with something?"

Today, I had a former colleague call me just to start to network in his hunt for a new job.  He was just asking for another set of eyes to help with his search and to send anything his way.  Why would he ask when I have not talked to him for a year?  The same reason I reached out to friends for new books:  resources!

Resources are the network that we create around us; it is knowing people and understanding their skill set that can be put to positive work.  Resources are more then the hardware we use everyday, but it is the places we hear about that we start our research.  Before you start to think about changing, moving, reorganizing, begin with the resources around you.  I feel that my strengthens have been built from the network of educators around me and I am grateful for everything I have learned from them.

Before moving on to the next task on your list, thank your resources because you just don't know when they may change!  So tell me; who is your best resource??

Join the conversation!

Engaging Thinkers

Moving into a new educational environment makes me think that it is the same challenges, just a different setting.  Engaging students is important part of education but making sure that we pull from how they learn and how the information is relevant is even more important.

As educators we always look at pedagogy, design, and implementation of courses.  With an organized hierarchy of learning, students will benefit from the time spent on using a backward design with healthy outcomes.   We need goals, objectives, theories, tools, activities, etc in order to make sure a student has a way to access information.  It is overwhelming to think of what is needed to help a student succeed which always brings on the questions about class size, individualized education, and how can we ensure all students are maintaining the same information.

Bottom line:  Educators need to keep students in mind and create ways for them to be a part of the planning,  developing, and learning of any information shared with them.  Hmmm....sounds like gaming to me.

Next; I am going to start to reach how gaming can be a success in any classroom!  Stay tuned and join the conversation!