1:1 or 1:None?

There are many great examples of one-to-one programs that have been well implemented and have achieved their goals. Go to any Edtech conference and you will hear presentations from folks that have done this well. Or pick up a copy of Project Red, which offers a research-driven roadmap for success in transforming a school, including the use of technology. There are websites galore that cater to great articles, tutorials, and research to help schools interested in how to implement a one-to-one program successfully, such as the K-12 Blueprint site, which regularly features blogs and articles on different schools and what they are doing with technology. 

So why should we be hesitant, or worse yet, not supportive of some proposed one-to-one initiatives? Many of the ideas for one-to-one that principals and other K-12 leaders have can be summed up with the phrase “I want to do a one-to-one program.” Many times this is the only idea expressed. Where is the vision and purpose? What is the educational outcome to which the program aspires? How does the leader see learning changing in a couple of years? These questions often can’t be answered, since there has been no thought as to why have a one-to-one initiative. Successful programs will have a goal, and with that a plan that provides a roadmap to help guide the project towards its goal. Why don’t more school leaders write a good plan? A lot of times it boils down to the desire for the shiny gadgets, and a lack of will and skill to write a solid plan and implement it. In those cases, it may be better to do one to none. 

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Do you have a new year's resolution to stay organized? Try my favorite productivity tool, Evernote

Sometimes, I feel like am very organized, then other days I feel as if I am anything but organized.  But generally I feel I do a good job utilizing task lists, to do lists, documenting ideas, mileage, meeting notes, instructions, web pages, tips, etc.  Over the years I have used many techniques to record this info, from paper, 3M sticky notes, to notes in Outlook.  But hands down, the best tool I have ever used for this is Evernote -  http://evernote.com/evernote/ .  As busy leaders, a tool like Evernote can prove indispensable to maintaining organized information in a hectic work world of information overload.

Evernote is a free productivity tool that I feel basically acts as my second brain many days, allowing me to easily find chunks of information that I probably would have otherwise forgotten or lost.  Evernote is available on the following platforms: 

• iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
• Android
• Windows Phone
• Blackberry
• WebOS (via App Catalog)
• Mac OS X
• Windows Desktop
• Windows 8 (Touch)

And even without a software or app install, Evernote is always available just through a web browser.  So as long as you carry a smart device, you will have Evernote at your side, ready to record info you do not want to forget.  

There are a million ways to user Evernote, or maybe more, judging from all the blogs post and list of uses you will find from a quick perusal of Google search results, from a query such as this: https://www.google.com/search?q=way+to+use+evernote .

I keep all sorts of information in Evernote, which allows you to store related information in notebooks, which are pretty much what they sound like.  You could have one giant notebook, or organize notes into a notebook for every subject.  I am not a big filer – I use about five main notebooks for a majority of what I file.  Much like my email filing technique, where I stopped being an email filer several years back and now I rely on search queries to find information, saving me the countless hours of filing emails, or in this case notes.  I keep the following notebooks in Evernote: Systems, Work, Personal, Recipes to Try, and Best Recipes.  A way I find useful that allows you to further make notes searchable, and findable, is by adding tags to notes in Evernote. As many tags can be added to a note as you want, allowing you to quickly find the note at a later time, but if you don’t tag notes, Evernote still has a robust search system built in to help you find your notes.

And this is where Evernote really shines and ends up being what I call my second brain.  I have Evernote on at least three computers, three tablets, and my phone.  What is great is that all of these devices keep their notes in sync, such that I can save a note on my phone during the busy work day, then fire up my tablet in the evening, to find the note waiting for me.  So I may clip a web page in my web browser, using the Evernote Web Clipper Extension - http://evernote.com/webclipper/ , which I can then later access on any of my devices when I need it. The web page is fully indexed, so I can search for a word or subject that was on the page, without having to remember what web site I had found the info on.

I also file lots of emails into Evernote.  If I receive an email that has information I need to keep, then I forward it to an email address that Evernote has attached to my account.  I think this is one of Evernote’s most powerful and often overlooked features.  To find out the email address to send notes to for your account, in the software, go to the Tools menu and choose Account Info.  On a mobile device or tablet, click on your name to see Account Info.  You will see an address to email notes to, which will then be automatically placed into your notebook.  This is fabulous and makes retaining a few really important emails all the easier.  I often send receipts, software licenses, and other things I need to keep to my Evernote email address so I can find them easily later.

If you have not joined the Evernote revolution, and you are looking to start the New Year out better organized, then I highly recommend you try out Evernote and see how it works for you.  Do you have an Evernote super tip?  Then feel free to leave a comment and share it with the world at http://ctotechnotes.blogspot.com/

This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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The Technology Quick Fix

After the marathon season of conferences and presentations, I have succumbed to an unexpected mid-summer illness.  Maybe this was a random occurrence or my body’s way of letting me know you have been pushing too hard too fast for a while.

All the presentations I have given and the conferences, meetings, and seminars I have attended speak to my need to learn and share with others, as well as the need for those of us in the technology world to try to get some feeling that we are somehow keeping up with the monumental shifts that technology is bringing to education and elsewhere.  I have learned a lot and then again I have learned that there are a host of great tools and technologies out there, and they are getting better every day.  But I have also never been so clearly a believer that, as these technologies improve, they will somehow transform an under-performing school or teacher into the best of their breed. 

The more I see great presentations on new technologies, systems, and devices, the more I worry that these are often bought as a quick fix for low performance, bad leadership, or other struggles that school systems and teachers face.

Yes many of these incredible technologies have great promise – but as school IT leaders we must always be willing to have some tough conversations with those we work with about making sure that these technologies are brought in not as a fix for bad teaching or leadership, but as a way to make great teachers and even better teacher.  This is really that only way that these technologies can really help schools excel in the long term.

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