Archiving Resources

I enjoy finding digital resources for my students and myself. One issue that quickly becomes apparent is how to store and find them when needed. I used to simply bookmark sites. Occasionally, I would manage them, but my collection grew too large for that system. I now use three tools to stay organized: Pocket, Evernote and Pinterest.

Pocket, formerly Read It Later, is very similar to bookmarking on your browser. As I read a tweeted link or an article on a website, I often want to save it. Once I manage the applications to grant access to my Pocket account, I have the option to "Read Later" when I select the share icon on my mobile device.

At a later time, I go to either the webpage or to the app to read my articles. At that point, I make another decision: keep it in Pocket, delete it, or add it to my Evernote notebooks or Pinterest boards.

I have written about Evernote previously. I use it to write my lesson plans and to archive many digital resources. Evernote allows me to tag anything so I can easily find what I look for. Notes within Notebooks make it easy to file items in an organizational scheme.

View options allow me to see my notes as a list, or, as shown here, as snippets. Evernote also makes it easy to share Notebooks with others making it a great tool to keep track of resources for a group of teachers.

Pinterest is a social networking service that allows users to "pin" websites onto "boards." Users get information and share by following others. Some websites do not allow pinning and since Pinterest's focus is on images, webpages without images cannot be used. Pinterest has broad categories of items, such as education, gardening and travel. It is also searchable. While I tend to use Evernote and Pocket only for work, my boards are a combination of professional and personal items. You can find me at Meg King-Abraham.

I have installed bookmarklets for these three services on my computer to make it really easy to archive all my resources. Do you have other suggestions for great archiving tools? Feel free to share them in a comment!

Getting Organized

I am a fanatic when it comes to being organized. Prior to each school year, a bulk of my work occurs in August even though I don't teach until September. I organize units of study, materials and my teaching and learning priorities.

I am beginning a new phase of my teaching career in a few weeks. I am leaving the classroom (after 22 years) to teach in a computer lab. At my new school, I will be a specialist for 20 K-6 classrooms.

The computer lab is spacious. It has 30 computers and a Promethean board. There are no shelves, counters or cabinets. Therefore, I am not going to be organizing any materials! I have already been making the shift towards being paperless personally and professionally, so I am excited to take it further.

I have been doing some experimenting with ways to organize digitally. One option I am trying out is LiveBinders. LiveBinders allows users to create digital binders. It is a free Web 2.0 tool. I am drawn to it for several reasons besides the price:

• The design is totally flexible. I can set the number of tabs, the tab names and I can put many kinds of files into the same section of a binder.

• The LiveBinder It Tool allows me to add content to my binder as I surf the web. The tool resides on my web browser tool bar. When I find a resource I wish to access later, I simply click and place the link into my binder.

• LiveBinders provides a way to link to kids-safe websites where my students and their parents can have easy access to information. I will be able to put it on the computer desktops in my lab while families can also access the contents.

• Finally, people can easily share their binders with other registered users. I have already found some great resources that fellow educators have organized.