What Happens to Those Conference Notes?

Many of us just returned from the Alabama Educational Technology Conference. Many will shortly be leaving for ISTE. As you look around during sessions, people are taking notes. In recent years, more and more are taking notes on laptops. This year, tablets were in abundant supply.

Now the conference is over. You have stepped back into "your life." So where are those conference notes right now? What will happen to them over the next few days? The next few months? The next few years?

Whether you attended AETC or any other conference, I am interested in your "system."

What do you you use to take your notes? How and where do you organize them later so that set of notes becomes part of your total package? What's your mechanism for sharing your notes with others? The more detailed you can be, the more it can help other readers with their own systems.

Alabama Educational Technology Conference Recap

Thanks to everyone who came to one of my sessions today at AETC. As promised, all you had to do was sit back and listen. All of the notes you could have taken are in the handouts. To get to them, go to my website and click on the Free Resources link. Or, simply click on the appropriate link below to get the handout for the session you attended. Each handout required a password to open. Use the one we gave you in the session.

Get Organized With Your BlackBerry
Now you can keep your calendar digitally. All of your "to-do" items will be in one place. You can now enter all of the repeating appointments once and let the BlackBerry handle the rest. Plus, you can anything in a flash.

Syncing your BlackBerry with Outlook makes a huge difference. The one-time setup is well worth it! You will also want to grab a copy of Configuring Outlook. 


Why Your PowerPoints are Awful and What to Do About It
Hopefully, you will never think of PowerPoint presentation the same way again. Now, the text is  in a document, the presentation is in your head, and beautiful pictures that are worth 1,000 words are on the screen. Your audience will not only stay awake, but they will remember what you said. Just don't tell anyone how easy this was to do!

Free Digital Tools That Increase Productivity
Yes, there is a lot of neat stuff out there. But just how much do you have the time to master. With what you learned here, you just put time back in your day, reduced your stress, and remembered why it was you liked technology!

If you are interested in adding to your iGoogle page some of the same gadgets I have on mine, here is an easy way to get them. As you click each link, you will be taken to a page that describes the gadget and let's you click a button to automatically add it to your iGoogle page.

Google Bookmarks
Google Reader
Yahoo News
Twitter
Facebook 
Dropbox
Bit.ly URL Shortener
Weather
CNN.com
CNN Technology
reQall
People.com
ESPN.com
MapQuest Driving Directions
Area/Zip Code Lookup
Music
YouTube
Document to PDF
Movies
GoogleDocs
GoogleCalendar
Google Map Search
Portfolio Monitor
Calculator
Stopwatch
Flight Status
Wolfram/Alpha

Want to set up a Dropbox account? Here is an easy way for you to set up an account and get an extra 250MB of free storage for both you and me. Click here to sign up.

We mentioned briefly about students being able to take tests on the computer which are instantly graded and item analysis conducted. Here is a post that goes into more depth on that concept.

If you are a first-time visitor at this blog, you will find 6 years of posts here designed to help you organize your life (with technology being a big part of it) and have more fun along the journey.


The right-hand column of this blog gives you the opportunity to subscribe, so that with every time there is a new post, you get the information in your e-mail. You can also sign-up for a free monthly e-mail newsletter, examine free resources on the website, or follow me on Twitter.


If your school could benefit by having everyone get what you got today, bringing me to your school can start by simply clicking here.

If you are attending the Alabama Educational Technology Conference, here are three sessions I will be conducting:

Get Organized With Your BlackBerry
(June 16, 8:00, East Hall Room N)
Have a BlackBerry, but just use it to make phone calls, get e-mail, and take a few pictures? You don't want to miss this session. Learn how to maintain a complete calendar. Keep all of your "to-dos" at hand where you always know what's next. Learn how easily you can search for any piece of information. We will also preview the new BlackBerry Playbook, Blackberry's entry into the tablet arena.

Why Your PowerPoints are Awful and What to Do About It
(June 16, 10:00, East Hall Room N)
After this session, you will never create a PowerPoint the same way again. Out with all of the bullet points that slide in. Forget reading text from a slide while your auduence sits bored to tears. Lose the handouts that are nothing more than screen shots of the slides. In this session, you will learn how to design slides that are beautiful, memorable, and help you sell your point. You will also learn where to get great images for free and how to plan the entire presentation.

Free Digital Tools That Increase Productivity
(June 16, 3:30, East Hall Room O)
Technology really can make your life easier. You will learn to organize the entire Internet, and that's just one of the topics we will cover using tools that are free for the taking.

Free door prize drawing at each session for your choice of Get Organization!: Time Management for School Leaders or Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers.