The gate and the horse

I have recently found out what area of the school I will be teaching in next year, and at least one of my colleagues for the entire year (more to follow when the knowledge is a little more public - so no spoiler alert necessary!).

While some may think it overkill or a tad premature, my immediate thoughts went to collaboration using technolo, and setting up a grade Ultranet space without a single student being enrolled in the class yet. And with some of my professional reading on Twitter recently, my brain started overclocking.

Thanks to @piratepete's blog, I had already re-established my long lost connection with Evernote. He posted about making observations on each student in one notebook, the beauty of which is that it is constantly able to be accessed from such a range of platforms. Seeing that I have diversified my daily load of laptop, netbook and iPad into my backpack and a satchel this seems like it will be very useful indeed.

A return to OneNote was inspired too, involving a heady bout of problem solving and importing. This was the result of my User Profile on my laptop being deleted, and all settings therein also being dematerialised, so after a lunchtime switching between users and notebooks, all seems the way it should be (with OneNote anyway - haven't risked Outlook yet!).

And what about joining a buddy school for some Skye projects? Squeezing a few more SMART boards into the budget figures and seeing if it flies? Using one of the vacated classrooms as a filming studio and investing in some green screen gear?

The best laid plans have yet to be written, but the idea shed is very well stocked - Santa would be jealous.