Curation
Everyone knows that one teacher with an overwhelming amount of papers on their desk that threatens to topple onto passing students. Or that teacher who's computer desktop is files upon files deep of clutter. It's simply a nightmare. Safe to say organization can be difficult to maintain, especially as classes continue, assessments pile up, and to do lists lengthens. So what about our online world? How do teachers organize those amazing pins from Pinterest that promises to revolutionize their classrooms? or their many blogs they may follow?
I am all for organization. As difficult as it can be to stay organized I think it is incredibly important. Important to have easy access to resources and ideas online. So, naturally curation of my online world was a simple choice. I like to be organized. Now organized isn't necessarily neat or clean. It's a system or way that makes sense to the user. Anyone know a teenager who swears their bedroom/locker/binder is organized and you look at it and see a complete and utter mess. Therefore, it is important to organize your classroom/house/life/etc. to your preferences because at the end of the day it isn't me or that blogger person with 101 tips to becoming organized that will be needing to use or find your stuff.
For, me as a teacher I use a daily planner, where I can write brief notes on what I will be doing in each class, staff meetings, etc. I keep to do lists and also have a monthly calendar visible with important dates jotted down. Writing down my tasks helps me not to forget anything and also makes me feel accomplished once I finished something off my list. While I was in university I used an assignment due date sheet that laid out what I needed to do for the semester with the date, class, assignment, started, competed, handed in and the grade I received on the assignment. I find if I can visibly see what I need to do I feel relaxed and organized. My favorite tool is my phone because I'm more likely to carry it along places instead of a notebook or planner. I used the calendar app to add even the smallest parts of my day to keep me organized and not forgetting anything or anyone. I find once I am organized I feel prepared and feel comfortable to tackle that to do list or start my day of school. Also because I benefit and work better once I'm organized I stress that in my classroom. The classroom is a place to learn and explore, but that is not possible if the place is cluttered and students and myself are loosing things. Thankfully target and IKEA are life savers and have fantastic organisational tools that can have a classroom in tiptop shape in no time. But the online world is a little different.
Online or on my laptop I like to use folders. Folders sorted for school related stuff, that new vehicle I'm looking for folder, news folder, sports folder, etc. Each folder will have a theme and may have more than one folder within it. That way when I find a resources or great idea I can download it and save it in that specific file so I can find it when I need it. On my browser I have booked marked sites that I use often and even placed some of them into files to avoid cluttering my work space. Pinterest is by far my favorite dreamy site. It is perfect to find many different ideas for basically anything you are looking for. They to use "boards" similar to folders to organize the pinned ideas of their users. If you are in to blogs and follow a few bloggers it can be complicated to keep up with all of them; especially, if you don't have time to check each one for a new blog post when you are online. A great tool to solve that is a R.S.S feed which essentially allows users to access many different blogs/websites all on a single feed. I have been using Feedly as my R.S.S feed and I LOVE it. It is so easy to use and allows users to organize the websites they follow into specific folder and even updates the the user if that file has new posts that they have not seen.
Another tool I'm curious to use is an Instagram curator. This is something I have never tried before, but as I started up my classroom Instagram page (Miss D's Classroom) I knew it was something that would make my life so much easier. I have looked into it a bit and found Nikki Astwood's blog that listed the top 4 curating tools for Instagram. I looked through it briefly and chose the tool Planoly to use. At this point I know very little about it beside that a local business in my area also uses it and recommended. I will let you know how that goes and update you how that goes.
I think it is important to teach students different ways to stay organized regardless of in the classroom, personal life or online.I like the idea of a private classroom website (for students and parents) as a place to share what students are learning and also access of sites marked by the teacher for easy access that are safe and reliable. There are many different tools to curate your online life here are just a few, but it would be a good idea to look into different apps/tools that work best for you because having tools and resources that make thing simpler is always helpful.
I am all for organization. As difficult as it can be to stay organized I think it is incredibly important. Important to have easy access to resources and ideas online. So, naturally curation of my online world was a simple choice. I like to be organized. Now organized isn't necessarily neat or clean. It's a system or way that makes sense to the user. Anyone know a teenager who swears their bedroom/locker/binder is organized and you look at it and see a complete and utter mess. Therefore, it is important to organize your classroom/house/life/etc. to your preferences because at the end of the day it isn't me or that blogger person with 101 tips to becoming organized that will be needing to use or find your stuff. For, me as a teacher I use a daily planner, where I can write brief notes on what I will be doing in each class, staff meetings, etc. I keep to do lists and also have a monthly calendar visible with important dates jotted down. Writing down my tasks helps me not to forget anything and also makes me feel accomplished once I finished something off my list. While I was in university I used an assignment due date sheet that laid out what I needed to do for the semester with the date, class, assignment, started, competed, handed in and the grade I received on the assignment. I find if I can visibly see what I need to do I feel relaxed and organized. My favorite tool is my phone because I'm more likely to carry it along places instead of a notebook or planner. I used the calendar app to add even the smallest parts of my day to keep me organized and not forgetting anything or anyone. I find once I am organized I feel prepared and feel comfortable to tackle that to do list or start my day of school. Also because I benefit and work better once I'm organized I stress that in my classroom. The classroom is a place to learn and explore, but that is not possible if the place is cluttered and students and myself are loosing things. Thankfully target and IKEA are life savers and have fantastic organisational tools that can have a classroom in tiptop shape in no time. But the online world is a little different.
Online or on my laptop I like to use folders. Folders sorted for school related stuff, that new vehicle I'm looking for folder, news folder, sports folder, etc. Each folder will have a theme and may have more than one folder within it. That way when I find a resources or great idea I can download it and save it in that specific file so I can find it when I need it. On my browser I have booked marked sites that I use often and even placed some of them into files to avoid cluttering my work space. Pinterest is by far my favorite dreamy site. It is perfect to find many different ideas for basically anything you are looking for. They to use "boards" similar to folders to organize the pinned ideas of their users. If you are in to blogs and follow a few bloggers it can be complicated to keep up with all of them; especially, if you don't have time to check each one for a new blog post when you are online. A great tool to solve that is a R.S.S feed which essentially allows users to access many different blogs/websites all on a single feed. I have been using Feedly as my R.S.S feed and I LOVE it. It is so easy to use and allows users to organize the websites they follow into specific folder and even updates the the user if that file has new posts that they have not seen.Another tool I'm curious to use is an Instagram curator. This is something I have never tried before, but as I started up my classroom Instagram page (Miss D's Classroom) I knew it was something that would make my life so much easier. I have looked into it a bit and found Nikki Astwood's blog that listed the top 4 curating tools for Instagram. I looked through it briefly and chose the tool Planoly to use. At this point I know very little about it beside that a local business in my area also uses it and recommended. I will let you know how that goes and update you how that goes.
I think it is important to teach students different ways to stay organized regardless of in the classroom, personal life or online.I like the idea of a private classroom website (for students and parents) as a place to share what students are learning and also access of sites marked by the teacher for easy access that are safe and reliable. There are many different tools to curate your online life here are just a few, but it would be a good idea to look into different apps/tools that work best for you because having tools and resources that make thing simpler is always helpful.
Until next time,
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