Helping students get organized - the online dayplanner

As we begin to look ahead to next year, we begin to have discussions about how we can do things differently and how we can help our students. One thing we have been discussing at our school recently has been planners for our students. The students already have planners - spiral bound numbers that they carry around to write down homework assignments, test dates, etc.

Since we have a 1:1 program in the junior high at Tok, as well as wide-spread access to technology in most of our other classes and all of our other sites, I submit that it's high time for us to explore some of the excellent online planners that are available.

One very good planner tool for students I'll discuss in this post is called TrackClass. TrackClass is a simple planner students can use and it works like this;

Students quickly set up an account (only email and a password - that's it), and then they can begin to use this tool. The beginning of the school year is the ideal time to set this up with your classes - simply have them enter each class they are taking on the TrackClass dashboard, along with the days and times this class meets (this is a nice feature for schools with rotating or alternating schedules). Once the classes are set up, it is very easy to navigate to the different classes.

Let's say a student is enrolled in an English course - they go to that course on their TrackClass dashboard and then they have options that are easy to use and keep up with each day. They can enter assignments with the due date - there is also an easy feature for the student to record points possible and weight of the assignment if the teacher makes that info available. There is a nice help box on the side that actually explains what "points possible" means! It also defines "points scored" and "weight" - handy stuff!

Another option students have within each class is to enter upcoming exams - the entry looks just like the assignment entry - also with room for entering the points the student actually earned if they want to track this.

Here is a fantastic option within each class - a tab called "Notes". Here a student can take actual notes for any class on any day day and they are all kept filed away neatly in the student's dashboard! The Notes tab also works with Markdown - which means students can add links and html into their notes - students can create quite a rich source of class notes with this kind of capability!

Another tab available for each class is the Calendar. This calendar works as an individual calendar for each class, or will compile all classes into one calendar. Best of all - the calendar can be subscribed to by iCal or GoogleCalendar - both of which are easy and available to all of our students!

The final tab is called "Files". This tab allows students to upload literally any kind or type of files from their computer - jpg, PDF, WordDocs, anything at all. So anytime a teacher wants a student to note a particular document for homework or study or in class work they might email it or tell the student where to find it and voila - the student can put it in it's proper place in their class dashboard!

TrackClass is a deceptively simple tool that really has a lot of power! Students could really increase their productivity, not to mention their confidence by having access to a tool like this that can go to work for them.

TrackClass is worth a good look for incorporating for next year's planners.

Ok Teachers - Post #1 to put you on the road to a more organized tech life

For those of you who already know this - please be patient - when I'm done with this series I will go back to posting useful things for your students. However, I have decided to post some things that will be really useful for teachers (although your students would probably benefit as well).

Bookmarking is a topic that seems to come up frequently in my technology related conversations with teachers. I have seen bookmarking done every which way - some I would consider quite creative, some pretty crazy, and some downright scary, as in, I would rather just not bookmark than do it that way!

We can all agree that bookmarks are EXTREMELY useful in helping us to keep all of this information organized. My problem a year or so ago was that I simply had too many. My Firefox bookmarking capabilities were stretched to the limit and even though I tried to be very organized with my folders, I simply could not find things any more. Also, on the occasions I was on someone else's computer, I felt almost blind without access to my bookmarks - I couldn't do anything!

Social bookmarking was the answer. Social bookmarking doesn't actually have to be "social", although that is a helpful aspect of it that you can always explore later. If you use a social bookmarking service, you simply "tag" a page you want to bookmark. The service will pop up a little window for you to add tags (like cross referencing in the old library card catalog).

There are many social bookmarking services out there, and many offer other services besides just bookmarking, such as newsfeeds, blogs, and social networks. Even if you don't care at all about the social aspect - the web-based bookmarking is just too handy to ignore. Two of the most widely used social bookmarking services are Diigo and Delicious (which I use). I strongly suggest that whatever service you use, download the add-on (either on Safari or Firefox, whichever browser you use) to your browser toolbar. When you are on your own computer, this makes adding, tagging, and searching extremely simple because it adds their buttons right to your toolbar. This is what my Delicious buttons look like installed on my Firefox toolbar;

Let's consider a previous post from this blog - the YouTube video of "Did You Know". When I found that video, I hit the Delicious Tag button in my tool bar, and then this little window popped up. I skipped the description (usually the tags are enough of a description) and entered my tags at the bottom (often there will be suggested tags - just click on them to add them).

Now, I keep my bookmarks in my sidebar view so that I can always find things when I want to. If I can remember the name, I simply search alphabetically through the bookmarks themselves. If I can't remember the name, but can only remember what it was about, I search through my tags and can easily narrow my search that way.

Another nice feature is that when I am on a different computer, I can just go to Delicious, sign into my account, and there they all are.

I now have over 700 bookmarks in Delicious, so you can see how this helps me to keep things organized. Using the Firefox based bookmarking system seems unwieldy now. I could never do it with this many bookmarks!

Here is the important classroom connection - have your students (junior high and high school) get social bookmarking accounts! I cannot stress this enough! How many times have you written looooong URL addresses on the board (several times) only to have students ask you for it again and again when it comes up in class. If your students have Delicious or Diigo accounts, they can access them on any computer at home or at school, and there are no more excuses for forgetting a URL or writing it down incorrectly. My French students all have Delicious accounts and it is a LIFESAVER!