Gmail

Although I won’t use Gmail in my classroom since I am a guest teacher, I am an avid user of gmail at home.  I have been upset with Gmail because I thought there wasn’t much as far as organizational tools for it.  I am excited to go though and set up labels and folders.  I will labeling all my home emails into categories like crafts, daughters activities, son’s activities, sewing, online teaching, homeschooling groups, homeschooling curriculum and so much more.  I will then go through and use similar labels to put these into folders.  I never realized the difference between folders and labels. Now I know why I should have used labels to make my search utilization easier, especially when I am trying to find that email on the homecoming parade in my hundred emails.  I am looking forward to setting up filters to further organize my online teaching and my homeschool teaching emails.  I have also put my calendar on the right sidebar to make it easier to set up our appointments and activities versus having to remember the info and close my gmail and open calendar to put in the information.  Ugh.   Since I homeschool my two children who are middle school age I plan on taking all my notes I am taking from this class and the you tube videos list I am creating from this class and I will now be teaching them how to use gmail and the organizational tools that can be used with it.  They are excited since they currently don’t have email accounts.  

Lastly I am currently working on constructing a more interesting email page to include my personalized signature.