Well, I’ve submitted my proposal for the upcoming iT Summit in Saskatoon in May. I’m going to do a presentation on using different tools to help teachers and staff to communicate and organize. I’m planning to look at using wikis, Evernote, google docs, google calendar, google reader, diigo and maybe a few other tools that I use regularly to try and keep myself organized. My hope is that I’ll be able to give people a look at a variety of tools that they can use in different ways.

In the past I’ve put my presentation together on a wiki and added information to the wiki as I gather my thoughts and ideas. I’m thinking that I’ll use this same method to put together this presentation, incorporating the other tools as I use them in my day-to-day work and teaching. Since I will be teaching 60% of the time this semester, I plan to show how I use the different tools to in my teaching to organize myself and the students with due dates, upcoming assignments and handing in assignments.

Another aspect that I will be discussing is the way that I use my Blackberry as an organizational tool and a way to communicate with my staff as I go about my day. I think that, as educators, we don’t always see these tools as any more than annoyances and don’t take advantage of their use in our own teaching. Not that I’ll be advocating for texting but these tools are much more than just texting machines. In fact, I see my Bb as a handheld computer on which I can do almost as much as I can my laptop and it fits nicely in my pocket! I use it to read email, read documents, write notes in my Evernote, check my tasks and make sure that if someone needs computer help, all they need to do is send me an email and I’ll know if it is an immediate need – a student being locked out of a computer – or something that can be left for later. I can also pass on a helpdesk ticket to the IT department if it is something that I cannot fix.

Would you want to attend something like this? Would you suggest someone you know attend? What else should I cover?