Multi-faceted Refractions

Yesterday, I began migrating to the cloud. Now that my data exists in the cloud, I can use the power of the cloud to access my information either via a browser, or hypothetically via a smartphone which I do not yet own, or via Microsoft Outlook. It enables me to use the power of the various tools in the most effective way, hopefully making me better able to manage all of the projects and tasks.

By still using Microsoft Outlook, I am able to:

• Use the task manager, which is currently more powerful than Google’s offering
• Have the ability to create a relationship between an appointment in the calendar and Microsoft OneNote, which allows me to more easily organize and retrieve my meeting notes.

Using the GTDInbox Firefox extension allows me to:

• Add a status label, so I can more easily locate the next tasks that I need to attend to
• Add a project label, to better manage the multiple projects that I am working on.
• Add the other labels I need for my organization

Having work in the cloud, well this allows me to access my information in more locations and does not tie me to one specific system.

The process has been working so far. I am excited about the possibilities and look forward to using these tools to hopefully become more productive.

We have been migrating to Google Apps for Education over the past few months. At this point, we have successfully set up all of our accounts, begun professional development for those who are new to the interface, and have been migrating a great number of our users from Outlook to Google Apps. This is a very exciting time.

As normal, I usually spend most of my time assisting others and not taking care of my own computing needs. So today, I began my personal migration to fully embrace the cloud and move my data. I am first using Google’s email migrator and Google Calendar Synch to move my contacts, mail, and appointments into the cloud. Once that is complete, I will then be installing and using Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook so that I can still use Outlook (and hopefully continue to use the ability to create OneNote notes from appointments) and the GTDInbox Tool to better manage my inbox and tasks.

Only six more hours to upload my mail and then to clean out contacts, clean out mail, and better learn how to manage the various aspects of my life.

While this may be old news to most people, the K12 Online Conference Convieners have announced that its 2009 Conference will be Bridging the Divide.

Once again, there will be four strands. They will be

• Getting Started
• Week in the Classroom
• Kicking it Up A Notch
• Leading the Change

Submissions for conference sessions will be kicked off next week to coincide with the NECC conference.