Thing 13

What about the to-do lists—helpful, too much work…?

• Which start page did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page?

I chose iGoogle. It seems to be the one most people at my school are using. Our staff development focuses on iGoogle, so it seemed a good choice although Page Flakes was a fun discovery. It seems very user friendly, as well.

• Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at the library or at home? Which tool(s) would you recommend to others?

I really like Ta Da. It's like a stickie, but web based. I loaded it on my iGoogle page and also tried the email feature. Both work just great!! Up until today, I've used Stickies religiously off my dock and that works great when our internet is down, which, at home, is all too often.

• How can the online calendars be useful to you?

Our district email program, Entourage, features a calendar. We have all of our mobile carts and computer labs on a sign-out through the calendar function. It works great. We can also send our individual calendars to one another for meeting sign-ups.
What I like about iGoogle is using it with my husband for personal use. If I get an appointment, I can put it on a "family" calendar which he can access and add to, as well.

• Did you try out Backpack?
  

I looked at Backpack and it seems ideal for business use. I wondered if departments at the high school would find Backpack a good communication/organization tool. I plan to show it to one department and get their reaction before making a big deal out of it. Our district also uses Moodle which seems to be a good way for teachers to communicate with families and students, but I'm not so sure about with one another.

• Did you try any of the other tools in the list?
  

This seems like an invitation to a summary statement. There's a lot to use "out there." A person could drive themselves insane trying to embrace all the options. I have to decide what works best for now and use it for, say, a trimester, then I'll re-access. For fall term, I'll try using iGoogle which has my calendar and Ta Da list on it. This will mean not using Stickies for the short term which could be disastrous if my home internet service continues to be spotty. Stay tuned!