I Love Technology

For the past three weeks I've been taking a Nebraska Writing Project course that is all about incorporating technology into the writing classroom. We've evaluated the effectiveness of technology, have been introduced to cool tools, and have had time to develop projects we can take back to our own classes. My focus for this institute was Google. I love Google. Next year my 12th grade students will be using Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs/Presentations, and Google Sites. If you aren't familiar with these free Google services, I'd seriously recommend checking them out.

If you're interested--here are a few of my favorite tools from the Tech. Institute (they're ALL free):

• Jing--a website that allows you to create a video of onscreen action (like a tutorial...how to use Google Docs for example) and record your voice
• Evernote--this is an amazing place to store and organize notes, reminders, pictures, whatever--it has a great searching system. I've even taken pictures from my phone of things I want to remember (covers of books, notes on the whiteboard in a class, etc) and emailed them to my Evernote account
• Remember The Milk--an electronic To-Do list. You can enter a task, give it a due date, and write a memo about it. You can also use it to create calendars and other cool things. I've placed this app on my iGoogle site (which is set as my homepage) so I can constantly see what things I need to do.