 Are you one of those people who like to make lists and take immense personal pleasure when you cross items off that list? Do you like to make lists to keep track of things? Well, here's something for you! This week I want to review three great list making sites to help keep your life in order.
Earlier this year, I talked to you about the "End of Sticky Notes," and hopefully convinced you that paper is just so 20th Century. Since most of us spend much of our waking hours on or near a computer, doesn't it make sense to write our lists there? It doesn't, however, always make sense to carry that computer around throughout the day in order to keep checking in with that list (and of course, printing it out on paper just defeats the entire purpose of making it digital in the first place!).
My favorite list maker these days is Memiary. It's so simple that it looks and works great on my iPhone (or any "Smart Phone" with web capabilities), so I can carry it around with me wherever I roam. I am a firm believer of "less is more" with tools that help teachers manage their work and practice. Memiary is perfect for teachers who have little time to add anything new to their "plate." It's a daily "diary" of things you want to accomplish each day, but confines your entries to a list of only 5 things (really... do any of us really accomplish much more than that?). Memiary works best by creating a list of things you've done after you've done them. It's perfect for a teacher who wants to create a "newsletter" with very minimal fuss. Parents or others can read the postings easily by subscribing to the RSS feed included, or even add the postings to an iCal account (Macintosh).
An even better use for the tool would be to create lists for your lessons' "Mastery Objectives" (or outcomes) for each day. In my school district, it is required that all teachers list the Mastery Objectives for each lesson somewhere for the students to see; it's great practice to constantly show students what the "target" of each task is. Memiary works perfectly for the average teacher: most teachers teach 5 blocks a day which fits Memiary's 5 limit list perfectly.
Another of my favorite list makers is Doris. If you're like me, you have more than one "To Do List:" there are home chores, school duties, books you want to read some day... Doris allows you to make multiple lists and with its "drag and drop" organization, you can easily change the view for priority tasks on the fly. Lists can be collapsed or expanded so you've got plenty of screen "real estate" to work with. There's a satisfying "checkbox" next to each "to do" item, and every task you accomplish gets archived in your "Task History" so you can always look back and see the exact date and time you check it off (perfect for when I try and remember when I got my oil changed last!). Doris is currently in Beta and it looks like many more features are on the way, namely, sharing your list with a team.
My last List-du-Jour tool is Zealog. Zealog is for keeping track of occurrences of just about anything: How many miles your class walks around the track at recess, how many books they've read, how many times it has snowed -- you name it. You can enter the data anytime and set the date and number of occurrences. Notes can be added to each entry and lists can either be private or shared with the public. Multiple people can edit and add to the list. For students, the magic really comes in when you look at the data in different graph modes: Line Graph, Cumulative, Trend Line, Bar Graph, Difference, or Loser Mode. Students can easily chart trends and accomplishments over time.
For many of us, making lists is a pleasant activity and I hope these tools make it even more satisfying.
 Bob Sprankle has been a multi-age teacher in Wells, ME for 10 years and has served as the school's Technology Integrator for the past two years.
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