Confession

So the first official challenge for kinderblog13 is now posted.

 I'd have to say it certainly intimidated me at first. However, after reading a few posts from other bloggers, I feel like I can tackle the challenge and confide in my readers.

My confession - I'm addicted to my iDevices! (I have a iPhone and an iPad, plus all full day kindergarten educators in my board have been given an iPad to use for documentation, so I actually have 2 iPads) My addiction is starting to become a bit unhealthy. It is the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before going to sleep. It feels like I'm constantly connected to that little box. All day long I'm tapping in that passcode to look for updates, or I'm listening for that familiar ping. I will sometimes send my husband a text when we are in the same house but on different floors. It's out of control. Now that I'm home for the summer I feel my addiction is increasing. Normally when I was working I was too busy to check in on things during the school day. (Although I do use an iPad in my kindergarten class for documenting student learning and progress, I keep my work iPad relatively free of my home based distractions) But now that I'm home for the summer I'm connecting with that little box all day long.

When thinking through this post I asked myself what am I actually doing on this miniature box all day? Some of it was productive, some not so much. So I figured I'd share in detail all the silly and or productive things I check/do on that little device as a sort of full disclosure for my confession.

1.

I'm guilty of logging into facebook just to troll and creep on all those statuses all day long. MINI CONFESSION #1 I rarely post updates of my own.

2.

 This one is somewhat productive depending on how much junk mail was delivered that day to my email.

3.  

I have two twitter accounts, so this one can go either way. I created one account to connect with other educators and increase my PLN. This goal is going quite well and I'm learning lots. This is where I actually found the kinderblog challenge. My other account though is totally unproductive. I use it to follow celebrity gossip and reality tv updates. MINI CONFESSION #2 - I'm also addicted to Big Brother. I use twitter to follow people who post updates from the live feeds. Yikes there sure is some crazy stuff happening in that house this season!

4.

 All of my appointments and celebrations are programmed into my calendar with reminders so this one is totally productive. Plus, I use the clock function to set my alarm every morning, although that function is currently being unused thanks to my wonderful summer vacation.

5.  

This is another one that falls into both the productive and unproductive categories. About half of my pinterest time is spent looking and pinning educational pins. The other half totally unproductive. Although I do pin some recipes,  household and holiday things, the majority of my time is spent perusing the humor board. My goodness, some on the things on there are hilarious. The ecards, autocorrects, and other stuff often have me amused for hours. MINI CONFESSION #3 - when I'm repinning things I rarely change the text.

6.

This one is mostly productive. The majority of the blogs I follow are education based. So, I'm learning lots about teaching and blogging. I will admit though, a couple of the blogs I follow are not education based.

7. 

MINI CONFESSION #4 - I'm also addicted to all things Disney/Disney World/Disney Cruise. So I'm constantly checking the DIS boards forums, even though our next trip won't be for a long time. I'm also checking Easywdw my absolute favourite Disney blog. Josh writes awesome posts about the parks and has an amazing crowd calendar to help plan your trips. The thing I like the most though is his writing style. 

8. 

 Productive for the most part- actually using my phone for the purpose it was designed.

9. 

Surfing the world wide web - productive for the most part.

10. 

Games - totally unproductive, mostly silly games in which you build your own city/farm/hotel/airline/salon/etc. My current game addiction is Hay Day.

11.

I'd like to think that having a camera is productive. I always have a camera with me now to document and capture all those important moments in life. A camera however does lead to Instagram which is probably not that productive. 

Overall, I think my iDevices are used for a balance of both productive and unproductive things. But I'm still trying to cut back on my constant connection. The main reason of course is my little boy. My goal is to play together, create together and explore together this summer. This is my chance to be a mom.

Another reason is to distance my son from technology because MINI CONFESSION#5 he's quickly becoming his own technology monster. As I was writing this post, he was busy exploring the new DJ app I downloaded for free thanks to my twitter connections. I didn't have a clue how to work it but he had it figured out in mere minutes. He loves Minecraft and also penned his first runaway note on our iPad. He inherited my old iPhone 3GS when I upgraded this fall. So he goes around telling everybody at school that he has an iPhone. I keep telling him that there is no chip in the phone so you just have an iPod but he doesn't care.

Technology is great and although we both really enjoy it we're going to have lots of fun experiences this summer without it. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to read all those other confessions.

Online Planning Tool

Last year my school became a Full Day Kindergarten (FDK) site. Previously I had two separate kindergarten classes who attended school on alternate days. I was so excited to become an new FDK site. A new program with a new draft curriculum document focused on the importance of play in kindergarten and incorporating the skills of inquiry based learning through our play and discovery!

A crucial part of this new Ontario Kindergarten program is that I would be working with an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) in my classroom. I mean 'our' classroom. The province of Ontario envisions a partnership between the two educators in the classroom. They wanted us to plan, program and assess together. I have always been interested and willing to co-teach so this was a great opportunity. But I was extremely worried about how we could effectively plan together on a weekly/daily basis. Many times when teaching the best laid plans often took a detour along the way. An unexpected assembly, an impromptu fire drill, the dreaded unscheduled illness, or a sudden teachable moment steering me off course temporarily. How could we possibly find a way to plan that worked for both of us and provided the shared access that we required.

Surfing the Internet last summer lead me to the solution.

                                                                    www.planbook.com
An online planing tool that we both could access at home or at school! Hooray! There was a small membership cost but it was well worth it to me. We set up our weekly templates and could plug our lessons into the slots. If we were working on a particular skill all week we could extend it for the entire week. We could also bump a lesson to the following day if we didn't get to it that day for some reason. Best of all I could save a copy of my daily or weekly plans and attach it directly to my electronic request for a supply teacher. All my supply teachers raved about how easy the plan was to follow. Happy supply teachers means they will agree to come back and teach again.

This year I will not have an ECE in my classroom because I'm no longer teaching kindergarten. But I will definitely be extending my membership at planbook.com. The ease of use and the fact that my plans are stored online means I can access them anytime, anywhere. Anyone else use an online planbook like this one? What did you think of it? Please leave a comment.

Thanks,