A day in the life…

I am co-facilitating a professional development series for teachers in the Allentown, PA area. This week they will be exploring web 2.0 tools and the whys and hows of classroom use of these tools. In our forum, they are asked to document their use of the Internet for a day. I tried to do that for myself and I realized that if I actually documented my entire day, I could be writing for a pretty long time!! That would seriously cut into my productivity though:)

Here is what I came up with:

An ordinary day starts for me with checking in on Facebook and Twitter. I like to see the recent posts and scroll down for any resources that might be useful for me or others with whom I work.

I check in on the USA Today app and also Smartbrief.

Then it’s on to email. I have my work email and my gmail to check. Within my gmail I participate in an instructional coach listserv where I glean resources and share anything that is relevant.

By about 8:30 I am making rounds and working with teachers, either by appointment or drop in. In between visits, I check in on email, twitter and sometimes facebook.

I control my twitter access by creating lists. That way I do not have to scroll through every single tweet. Other times I check on hashtags, like #edchat. I try my best to share back when I can, but this usually happens in the evening because twitter is blocked in my district.

I used to use Google Reader to bring information right to me, but now I tend to access those same things through twitter and facebook.I use Flipboard and Zite on the iPad, as well as AP News. I access my Diigo account at least once an hour – to find a resource or add one for later review. Diigo is hands down my favorite and most useful organization tool!

That’s all about how information comes to me, but I also create a lot each and every day!

We use wikispaces, google apps, Moodle, and WordPress in my district. This week I am working on building Marketing materials on a wikispace, helping a teacher organize a student site with google sites to plan an appreciation breakfast, building these Moodle sessions and maintaining a elementary wide blog using WordPress. These are the main focus areas this week, but I also have smaller activities going on with these types of tools for other teachers and for other purposes.

For me, I see using the web in a plate spinning analogy – I keep things turning, so nothing comes crashing down!