Research for a busy teacher

Research for the Busy Educationalist

 Google Alerts and its related Blog Search Gadget are extremely useful research tools that require no day-to-day attention. Set up the search terms and either use a second email account or a filter for your main account and the results will be delivered to you even though you are not actively searching.

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Online scheduling – Doodle

Have you ever received an email saying, ‘ we must meet to discuss….’ and then the difficult process starts of saying what days you are available, what days your contacts are available and the meeting fades off into the future, to far ahead to be useful? Have a look at http://www.doodle.ch/main.html  You set up a meeting with all the days you are available and email a link to the interested parties. They select the days they are available, you select the most convenient and repeat the process for the time of the meeting. Its one of those things that are invaluable  and have been needed for years without ever being able to articulate it. Sponsored by Google ads like so many other things. Really useful . Web 2.0 technology is slowly beginning to change the way we work, de-centralising  the ‘office’ experience.

Classroom and Network monitoring

The bane of my existence is students running ‘Youtube’ or a game behind the work they are supposed to be doing. I move around the class and behind me the games and videos spring into life. There are classroom monitors available but at prices between £4 000 ($8 000) to £8000 ($16000) Read more