Multitasking or Just a Mess?

I read a great post today on Your Brain on Multitasking from Creating Passionate Users. It seems as if I am never doing just one thing at a time anymore. It seems worse when I am on the computer! I forever have multiple windows in Firefox (or IE at work), Twitter, Skype, and of course email. My Blackberry or office phone ringing. And people wandering in and out of my office to talk or ask questions. Yet, at the end of the day, I wonder why I accomplished nothing on my "to do" list! At times I think my multitasking actually keeps me from getting work done. In the midst of figuring out what to next, time slips past me. The post on Your Brain on Multitasking talks about being mindfulness. Being present to the task at hand rather than looking to the other things needing to get done actually saves time.

This will be my mid-year's resolution...Hope I do better with this than my new year's resolution!

Daily Links 03/31/2008

Creating Passionate Users: Your brain on multitasking

tags: Blogs, Brain

TweetStats :: for mrhgaddis

tags: Statistics, Twitter, Web2.0

Get statistics on your Twitter usage.

Zamzar - Free online file conversion

tags: Conversion, Video

Zamzar tool that allows you to convert files from your browser.

NCaect now NCTIES (conference thoughts)

Well, as always, I had good intentions to blog throughout the conference. Instead, I spent time talking with board members, feature presenters, and conference participants. There was a great buzz throughout the 3 days of conference.

My first great experience at the 2008 NCaect conference was going to the Charlotte airport to pick up Leslie Fisher and Deneen Frazier-Bowen. These featured speakers had never met each other but in a matter of minutes had made several connections and were talking like old friends. These women are at the top of their field so it was an honor just to sit back and listen! Deneen spent the first 2 days of conference in character (Edy, Julio, Maria, and Joanne-their blog is http://learningconditions.blogspot.com) going around and talking with participants as well as a special trip to Concord Middle School to talk with students. Julio managed to surprise Leslie during her preconference- it was about 3 minutes into conversation before Leslie realized that it was Deneen. She was not the only one fooled!

A big thanks to Kevin Honeycutt for letting me take part in his preconference- a totally unplanned moment but fun! As he was sharing Twitter with the group, I sent a tweet in reply to him which spurred him to ask me to speak. I almost forgot how much I enjoy presenting at conferences.

Finally, the EduBloggerCon mediated by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and David Warlick was the beginning of a great conversation! I am amazed at the number of people who have decided to follow me now on Twitter. It really is about making the connections and building the network. These are people I would never have had the opportunity to bounce ideas off of or just talk shop. We talked about issues regarding students in the 21st century and how to get teachers to get on board.

Big thanks to all the teachers, administrators, directors, and vendors who made the conference a success. Scott Smith, the new NCTIES president, was awesome as this year's conference chair! Only 363 days until the NCTIES conference in Raleigh!

My one session at NCaect

Twitter, Ning, and Yugma, Oh My! by Cindy Phthisic



Cindy is Ustreaming this session as Naect1.



Blogs:

Teacher Tube- "In Plain English" videos by Commoncraft (about 3 minutes long)

21 Classes: student blogging tool with no email required

Class Blogmeister: David Warlick's tool

Edublogs now have student blogging with no email required



Jane's E-Learning pick of the day



Wikis:

Use for curriculum mapping

Wetpaint



The 100th Day Project

Wikibooks



RSS:

Pageflakes


Social Bookmarking:

del.icio.us

The Winds of Change

I am going into my 8th month in my new job. I decided in January that I wanted to visit all 75 schools we have in our district to determine the concerns, needs, and wants of technology and leadership. Some visits have been better than others. I have been fortunate in the last couple of weeks as my boss and I have been invited to come and talk tech with a few middle school principals and tech facilitators. I love to see the lightbulb come on when leadership finally gets it! We have talked equipment (my least favorite of the discussions), furniture (surprisingly fun when we are looking at cyber cafes in schools!), and staff development. There are so many possibilities for these schools and I can't wait to see it develop.

Searching for Twits

I have been working with Twitter since FETC and I am getting better at it. However, I am not able to find people effectively. I tried to search for my own account and did not come up! Crazy. Is there an easy way to find people? I am going to try to develop a list of tips and tricks for Twitter. If you have any, please let me know!

Get your motor running...

NCaect is just a week away! This year's conference is already proving to be inspirational and uplifting. Have you heard all the cool stuff people are presenting? I just wish I could attend more sessions (a little hard when you are the president!) but I hope my folks from Winston and my peeps from Alamance will take good notes! Scott Smith, VP and Conference Chair, shared today that there are already over 1200 people registered! That is a conference record!

Can't wait to see you there!