Save URLs on your Desktop

Here's a Smart Kid trick I think you'll love.
Do you have websites you go to nearly everyday?
Did you know you can save links to them on your desktop so they're easy to get to?
Like this:

Now, with it on your desktop you can just double click to open the website.
But this trick gets better.
Maybe you have a bunch of links you want to save in a folder so you can use them again and again for a particular unit of study with your students.
Make a folder on your desktop by right clicking (Control-Click)

Now do the same thing as before, dragging your links into the folder

When you're finished you can file this folder away with everything else you store for that unit. Just drag the folder to where you want it using Finder.

Oh yeah...be sure you go into the folder and give those links intelligent names or they won't mean anything to you later.

NOW it gets even better...
Maybe you go to 5 websites everyday (email, calendar, Jennie's blog. wink) and you'd like easy access to them from your Dock.
Yep. We can totally do that too.

Here we go:

Remember to go into that folder and rename those links or they will be a pain to decipher when you have to move fast in front of 35 kiddos later.

And there it is all happy! It's going to look like a Web icon, because that's what it's full of unless you change it. Change it by doing a Control-Click on it and you'll get this menu. Choose Folder to make it look like a folder.

Now ask me if you can change that little folder icon to something cool like Marvel Super heroes icons.

Umm...

Oh. Yeah.

I'll totally show you how if you want me to. :)

Baah! How cool is that?!

Calendar Awesomeness

I like blogs that get right down to business, so I'm going to go straight to the important stuff here and then if you feel like reading about why I wrote this blog you can keep going. 

If you do, I promise you a good laugh at me and my ridiculousness by the end (rolls eyes).  

Here goes: 

How to Get in The Google Calendar Game:

There is plenty written about this, so I'll just provide some links.

1. Get a Google Account if you don't have one. This will give you access to Gmail (though you don't have to use it), Google Docs (another amazing collaboration tool), Blogger (which is how I'm writing this blog right now), and tons more.

2. Go make some Calendars. This link is for a 9 minute video for those of you who like to walk through set-up with a video tutor. But Google Cal is pretty intuitive, and you'll get pretty far by just playing with it. If you need to know how to get to it...just go to a Google search page and look at that top black bar.

3. Share. Just like with our kiddos. Share your tools :)

4. Sync your Calendars with your laptop and other devices...if you want. This link is to a blog post that gives good details about how to do this. But know that this step is only a convenience. Even if you don't sync, your Google Cal is available everywhere just by going to it on the web. :)

Note: Yes, it will sync with Android as well, but I didn't put a link for that here. If you want a hand with that, leave me a comment and I'll find a good resource for that too!

Now here's the rest of the blog about why you should do Steps 1-4 above!

At school last week we started a Calendar conversation. 

I made promises of Awesomeness. 

I stand by those promises, because...i.LOVE. my Google Calendars. 

I have 17 of them (yes one of them isn't showing up in this picture if you're the type who just counted.  I'm positively fond of you, if you're the one who just counted. hee.)

But change is never easy and many of us have other calendars we already use and don't want (need?) one more system.

Absolutely!
We should never add technology layers if they won't make things simpler, easier, more efficient, more collaborative, etc.

My litmus test for my teachers this year is this:
Will this technology save them time and effort while helping them do what they do (engage kids in meaningful learning) even more awesomely?   

If the answer is, "no but it's a neato technology...," then I won't bring it to them. That's my commitment to the Rockstars I work with.  In the case of Google Calendars though, there is so much potential for simplicity, time-saving and collaboration over any other tool available to them that it's well worth bringing to the table. (And it's free...what?!)

What are the benefits:

• Google Calendars can be shared. This means that I can set up a Calendar for my team, share it with them and now we all can make changes to it, see each others schedule, etc. At school, our Principal can put important info (assemblies and recess duty) on a master calendar and the teachers can all see it in real time right up against their own personal calendars. That brings me to the next awesome feature...

• Google Calendar can send you a Text or Email reminder. So in the case of my teachers, they can go into the Principal's Master Calendar on their recess duty entry and ask it to send a reminder to their phone the night before they are due on the playground. The beauty of this is they didn't have to remember to add their duty schedule to their personal calendar. It's already there on the shared one! They just ask for a reminder.

• Everything is in one place and available wherever I have internet access. I can log on to any computer or internet device anywhere and have access to my calendar. I don't have to be on MY laptop. I can also have access to my boys schedule and my husband's work schedule

• Everything can be Simplified. But I don't have to look at everyone's calendars most of the time. I can turn them on when I need to check and right back off. 

Now the part where you laugh at me.

Yeah. That's us the day I remembered to take him to 7th grade.

I believe in humor as much as I believe in leveraging technology. This is why I often do stupid things. Remember this blog post about my parental awesomeness?

I'm happy to report that we do have improvement since the first day of 6th grade, because we did in fact make it for the first day of 7th grade this year. 

We celebrated with cake.

However...

Today I forgot him at Cross Country practice. Didn't even think about him until my phone buzzed at 17 minutes past. 

Ask me why I forgot him. 

I was writing a blog post about how awesome Google Calendar is because you can have it send you text reminders so you won't be late picking up your kids.

Yeah.

He laughs at me, this boy. I do too, thank goodness. (I've always said, "if your kids know you're really, really crazy about them you can make a lot of mistakes and they'll be ok." I've now added, "but start a therapy fund just in case...")

I just set a reminder that will buzz my phone 17 minutes before I'm late next time.
Did I mention that I love my Google Calendars?

Emailing Your Classroom Parents

Remember this little post from last year?

Well, here we are again making our class email lists. Here is how to make an email contact list... And how to send it to your team so that you don't all have to enter the same email addresses! It's quick and SO easy. These videos are like a minute long so you totally have time for this!
Ready: Go!

How to Create and Share an Email List in First Class



How to Add that List to your Contacts once you get it.



If you want the other fun tricks like how to set a signature in your email and how to make a cute little outgoing mail icon...check out last year's post. It's still the same.

On another note:
About email protocol... When you are sending an email to a large group (entire class), the best protocol is to send the email to yourself and Bcc: everyone else. That makes it blind so others can't see all the recipients and will help avoid some issues that the server will have when emailing large groups. In First Class you'll have to choose the "Show Bcc" button in order to get a Bcc field to use. Like this:

Happy Emailing!