Notes on "Finding Time" by Mary Alice Anderson

Reading this, I was reminded of different time management works that I have read. My current favorite is Getting Things Done by David Allen. I started looking at my own routines in light of Minnesota Department of Education's check list:

* Does this task really make a difference to the learner?
* Has the curriculum changed so the task has become obsolete?
* Is the task more of a time-consumer than a time saver?
* If this is a time-consuming task, will the end product be worth the time spent?
* Is the task a fad that won't have lasting value?
* Is it a routine task that can be done by someone else (clerical work?)?
* Is it a task that can be automated?


I do many things that could be done by someone else: putting newspapers on sticks; opening windows; getting simple office supplies for students; helping students with the copier and unjamming the copier; helping students when their documents won't print. These are all tasks that absolutely make a difference to the learner (in very practical terms), but at the same time distract me from work that would be using my skills better.

I want to spend more time reading and reviewing new books, thinking of interesting questions for our book club, creating new and interesting displays, creating new pathfinders for teachers and students.

I also believe that there is a part (and I want to stress "part" here) of web 2.0 that is a fad and won't have lasting value, but there is much that will absolutely be with us in the future, and even some of the temporary skills that we are learning will be steps for learning future skills.

Should students use automation tools for creating their bibliographies? I see people who aren't open to new learning-media and hold an almost fetishistic adherence to print obsess over the minutia of print bibliography work and wail about the "death of the book." On the other extreme I see kids who can use these new tools grabbing digital text, images, sound, and video and slapping them together like a sloppy collage then publishing it to potential millions with no regard for where this digital material came from and little critical thought about the ideas represented. In order to navigate a safe course between this desperate print-Charybdis and this mad digital-Scylla I'm moved to think deeply about the fundamentals of learning-- of searching for the source and the best way to share sources with others . . .