Staying Organized
In my own life I find that I have always struggled with staying on top of everything. I get lost in the day to day mess of everything that is happening and I find that I have a hard time remembering everything that I need to so that I can stay on top of my daily tasks. I found that in the classroom this problem was multiplied even more when I added what each student needed or what groups I had to take care of, assignments that needed grading, lesson plans that needed planning and so forth and I found that I was often feeling bogged down and the more I tried to get on top of it, the harder time I had keeping up with everything. This lasted until I discovered a great free app called Trello. Trello lets you keep track of all my to dos and I can do it from any device and my favorite thing is that it is always scaled to the screen I'm on and it looks and acts the same independent of the operating system I'm on!
Trello is built with the idea that everyone has a board that they need to keep track of projects on, and on each board there is a card that allows you to keep track of details within your board. Trello allows users to make lists of cards that can be moved through the process of a project (I like to use lists titled: To do, Doing, Done) With cards on the lists, details can be added to the back of the card, by clicking on the card, users are shown a new menu of goodies. Users can create checklists, add files as attachments, assign cards to other users, add stickers, and even set a due date for cards.
I find that using Trello allows me to stay more organized, and being organized allows me to be more effective at work!
To see how other teachers are using Trello in their classroom check out how these high school teachers are using Trello to organize their classroom.