bookmarks and calendars

Bookmarks and calendars are a great way to get organized personally and professionally. I could use it to post events, due dates, or meetings for myself. For the personal use, I could really use it for remembering birthdays, or a way to keep myself on task for upcoming events. In the professional setting I would definitely use it to remind me of meetings or professional development opportunities with education. Bookmarking would be a great way to organize different websites that I want to use in the classroom, or several references for approaches and concepts to use with kids. Also, there are a lot of great lesson plans that are online, and I could bookmark those according to subject.

I could also use the bookmarks and calendars for the students. I could have a class account with a variety of websites that may be references for them or that offer homework tips. Other pages that would be great to bookmark would be extension of what we covered in class for a deeper understanding of the content, or in case we ran out of time in class and there was more that I wanted the students to look into. I could also make a tab for current events for a social studies page, or add several other sites for various subjects. I'm not sure how the filter would work in certain schools to distinguish what sites I can and cannot use. The calendar for the students could consist of all the due dates and would be updated as needed. This will allow the students to be able to look ahead in the schedule to see when things are due, as opposed to asking me several times a day. It is an easy click away to see due dates or holiday breaks.

In using the bookmarks and calendars for parents, it will be very helpful and beneficial. On the bookmarks I would offer study tips or help tips for parents with their students work. Also, I would provide family and parenting websites for common areas parents get frustrated with (getting kids to bed on time, helping with homework, talking to their children about school, open communication with children, etc.). This will hopefully help parents to become involved with school or help them with things that happen outside of school. It is important that children learn not only in school, but in the home as well. The calendar will be used to keep parents posted about homework and project dates, along with conferences and other after school/community activities.

The idea of using online bookmarks and calendars is very beneficial in all realms of education. It is also easily accessible from any computer, which also makes it a very attractive tool to use in the future with my students.