Ahh, new learning overload - looking for advice!

I'll apologize in advance for this post that I'm sure will be all over the place.  We had a 2-hour delay Monday, no school Tuesday, full day yesterday, and again a day off again today.  Tomorrow I will be out for a conference, and with the weather forecast, I'm hesitant to start figuring out my sub plans.  Needless to say, my brain is scattered.  I'm home alone on an unexpected day off, it's already 1:00, and I don't feel that I've gotten anything accomplished.  So if this post gets completed, I'll be happy!

In addition to the many items I'm planning to write about, I've decided to link up with Teaching Trio for their Technology Thursday.

My "share" for today is quite simple, and likely something that many of you already do.  Every year I have many students who leave my room for various things, such as going to speech class.  And for many years my classroom phone would ring, and it would be the speech teacher, or whoever, politely reminding me to send a student down (because I'd forgotten and they are now late!).  Thank goodness for my iPhone.  I program in weekly scheduled times, and let my phone remind me.  I haven't gotten a phone call in two years now!

 

You might notice that I give myself 2 minutes warning with the times I set.  I'd love to hear about other simple ways that teachers are using their phones to help make them more efficient.

So, now....I'm really looking for advice and HELP!

A while back I signed up for Twitter.  I never really got it, but never really tried.  And then I found out that I kept being mentioned in Tweets by people who obviously meant to tweet Mary J Dressel the sensual romance writer, which is NOT me.  So I started over Monday, and am using 4thworks for my new username.

I was in a hurry to sign up because I wanted to join a chat that I read about from Susan over at Passion in Portable Land.  I'm not sure why I thought I could jump into the deep end of Twitter after just joining, but I did it, and the people at #4thchat were extremely nice.  There is supposed to be another great chat on Sunday night at 10pm, but that's too late for me:(  If not for you, it's #TMchat for Thinking Maps.

I'm still not sure I understand when Twitter would be the best social media tool.  Any advice on how to use this, who/what to follow, or anything else someone wants to share, I'd be very appreciative.

Like Twitter, I also created an Instagram account a while back (mostly to keep tabs on my daughter) but rarely used it.  So I started over and created again a new account under 4thworks.  Now this I get more than Twitter.  It's like Facebook, and I've already found some great ideas.  I haven't posted anything myself yet, but I will.  Feel free to find me, so that I can follow you.  Or, let me know if you have any suggestions for great users to follow.

 

Again, signed up a while ago.  Did a bit more than with the others, but not much.  There wasn't a need to start over with this one, but my goal is reorganize my boards and use this more.  I know there's a lot more to this than just pinning to your own boards (which is all I've done), so there's learning to be done here too.

 

Finally....Power Point.  So, I know that Power Point is more common than Keynote.  Today I downloaded a free 30 day trial to play around with.  Yet another item clouding my brain today.  I've played around a bit, and it is so much better than Keynote.  I will likely continue with it after the 30 days.  

I'm very happy with all that I've done, but I think I should be doing these one at a time.  Oh well, that's me, and I need to accept that.  

To all of you in the Midwest with me, stay warm.  I saw this on FB this morning and got a giggle.