by Denise Maduli-Williams
“You’re so lucky you have the summer off,” is the first comment anyone who finds out I’m a teacher says. Well, I may not be in the classroom teaching, but in many ways I’m still working. Teachers are so busy on a day to day basis during the school year preparing lessons, grading assignments, attending meetings, and so on, that our To Do lists never seem to get all checked off. The summer can be a welcome relief to get to work on the things we can never find the time to take care of while we are teaching.
Here are my Top 10 Tech To-Dos over the summer:
- Clear up my email. I set my vacation message, and purged my Inbox. Now is the time for me to go through my folders and labels (Gmail all the way!), trash old emails and reorganize what’s left. That clear blank slate of an empty Inbox does wonders.
- Learn something new! All of the tech tools I favorited on Twitter or pinned on my Ed board in Pinterest to check out later. Now is the time to figure out how to use them! I can experiment and plan for how to integrate in my classes without the pressure of teaching the next day.
- Catch up on my reading. Similar to #2, I bookmarked cool new blogs and sent myself links to read. Now is the time to go back with a rested brain and read some of those new articles, and add some new writers to my blogroll.
- Finally participate in some edchats on Twitter. I never seem to remember or find the time to participate in the many edchats that I want to. Now I can – here are a few you’ll find me participating in: #eltchat #edtech #rpcv
- Tech clean-up is a must! Sticky mouse. Dust and crumbs in my keyboard. Fingerprints blocking my screen. Now is the time to take care of it all.
- Get some free PD. I don’t have funds for travel or registration fees for conferences, so I find ways to keep up with new trends by searching for free online professional development workshops or DIY tutorials.
- Go through my Dropbox – same method as purging my email. I sift through outdated files and organize the ones that I need.
- Update any software so that I’m ready to go when classes start up again. All the notifications that I click away? I need to update so everything will be current when September rolls around.
- Get a jump-start on my fall courses. I’ll update my Google Site, check links and resources on my Moodle course, and see what other tech enhancements I can utilize in the fall.
- Cell phone clean-up as well! Lots of apps I tried didn’t work out, and it’s time to get those off my phone. Organizing the rest into folders helps me find things easier as well.
There you have it. I’ll let you know when summer ends if I got through my Tech To Do List!
Denise Maduli-Williams: Veteran ESL Educator, RPCV, Air Force brat, wanna be tech-expert, Twitter Newbie, and brand-new blogger. Proud faculty at the City College of San Francisco.