In the “old days” during the last century, it was easy to pick up and move jobs. You simply found a small box or two and packed up your physical belongings, then headed out the door.

In the 1990’s, when I was first starting to use computers and laptops, it was packing a second and maybe a third box, this time containing 5.25″ and 3.5″ floppy disks and maybe a few boxes which contained application software and manuals, like ClarisWorks, Microsoft Word, Aldus PageMaker, and a few others for good measure.

Now that I am moving to a new position, not only am I having to pack up my physical items, but now, untangle the mess of connections and registrations of web-based apps. I did not think that this would be so hard, but having immersed myself in a variety of online tools, including VoiceThread, Google Apps for Education, Evernote, this blog, and my Apple iTunes account, it has been quite a different learning curve.

I am glad that for the most part, I registered for most of these tools using a personal account, rather than a school-based email account. It is making the transition much easier.

Doing so has allowed me not to have to worry about having to pack and then unpack those digital artifacts. I can simply continue using them. The down side, however, is if they are for a school based project, I believe that these should be based and used from a school based email address.

I am currently working through moving the three and a half years of Google App artifacts from my school based account to a Google account which is separate from my primary Gmail account. I am doing this so I can retain the old information and only move the essential items I want to my primary working account. The rest, I am pruning to store in a digital locker.

I am trying to document the process and procedures and will be sharing my experiences in moving Google Docs, Calendars (27 of them), Sites, YouTube channels, Blogger posts (for school), and Contacts. Along the way, I am updating some of my procedures for setting up new domains, updated best practices for schools who will face this in the future.

Stay tuned.

But enough. Time to get back to pruning my account.