able and for now, mostly free. Another good way to keep track of your thoughts is to use a tool like Evernote.
n Evernote (
evernote.com). Evernote is
something that I didn’t really begin to use until I had an iPad. It provides a way to cap- ture “notes” on a mobile device (including smartphones) that synch with an iPad or desktop device. Evernote also uses the free- mium model, and I’ve found the free version to be just fine for my needs. With Evernote you can save website links,
your own notes, files and photos into virtual notebooks. You can then share those items with others as well. Some of our principals have organized these virtual notebooks for each teacher, and then during classroom vis- its they will take photos, write notes or even capture videos that they can share with the teacher as part of the ongoing coaching pro- cess. One of the cool features is the ability to
annotate a note or a photo with an audio file as well. For busy administrators, this can be an excellent way to quickly capture your thoughts, ideas, interviews with students or other information.
Lisa: That sounds great! But how can
somebody keep track of all of these new devel- opments? Devin: One strategy that I use is to lever-
age RSS feeds. n Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way
to push (or pull) information from multiple sources – called “feeds” – into one place. As an example, I made a quick blog site
(
devinsreader.blogspot.com) that pulls in the RSS feeds from the California Depart- ment of Education, TICAL, FCMAT, the K-12 High Speed Network and the “Inside School Research” blog from Education Week. You can see that this scrapes the headlines from these sites and, with a simple click, I can get to the source and get the entire story. Feel free to go to the site at any time to get a quick overview of the latest and great- est developments in the world of California school leadership and technology.
Lisa: Well, that’s it for our Top 12 for 2012. January/February 2012 31
A few old friends from our Top 10 of 2010 list, but most are new sites. Devin: Just goes to show how quickly
things are changing. As a matter of fact, I have an idea for 2013’s list. Lisa: Stop the madness. Let’s save a little
something for our readers to look forward to as we try to embark on 2012. Devin: Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you in
2013. n
Lisa Gonzales is a coordinator in curriculum & instruction at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. She is the state vice president for
legislative action for ACSA. Devin Vodicka is the assistant superintendent of business services in the Carlsbad Unified School District. Both are
members of ACSA’s Technology Leadership Group and TICAL, the Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership.
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