Technology for the Teacher - Outside of the Classroom

Teachers use technology in the classroom to enhance student learning, but sometimes using technology is necessary before even stepping into the classroom. Four areas where I've found it helpful, efficient, and at times necessary are organization, planning, student contact, and professional development.

Organization
-calendar (I love all the features of outlook, and that I can take it with me on my phone.)
-doodle polls (doodle.com is a very user friendly site to get information about scheduling from a group of people.)
-bookmarking (I liked delicious, but don't use it much now. I have more of a tendancy to create a website to house my links for specific subjects.)

Planning
-lesson planning/research best practice (I am so thankful for all the resources on the web, whether it is a review game or a video, I can put them together without having to create from scratch.)
-can be done anywhere/from any computer (I house my lessons on a google site, so I can create the lesson anywhere and students have access to it from anywhere.)



Student Contact
-email (Great for mass mailings.)
-facebook (Love it for individual touch points and event invites.)
-google docs (Works well with sharing documents.)
-skype (Helps students participate from home.)

Professional Development
-videos (You can learn how to do anything from videos found on the web.)
-blog following: freetech4teachers, etc (I love having my favorite blogs come to me in my email inbox. It allows me to skim and get the good stuff!)
-national and state listserves (I also like to lurk on listserves to keep up with what is going on around the state and nationally.)
-web conferences (This is my least favorite mode for pd, but it does serve the purpose and meet the need. If travel is not possible, web conferencing is good. The facilitating needs to be more than reading slides, though :)