WebedtecH

GTD and other systems have leveraged the concept of contexts for a long time. These are the places that actions should be taken, for example @home, @computer, or @phone. It makes it simple to find things to take off your to-do list in groups when you can filter them by where you are.

Evernote Mobile gives you the ability to add tags to your captured items and then search for those tags. If you are using Windows Mobile as I am and capture a text note you can tap on:

Then add a title by selecting Options and Edit Title.

Once you have added a title select Options and Assign tags to add your context to your note.

Now when you create your note and synchronize it with Evernote the context will be pushed up as a tag and can be reference from the desktop, searched from the web, or used to locate all the related notes while mobile as you see below:

You can see that by searching for the context “@grocery” I can find all the notes applicable to that location.  Yet another way Evernote Mobile can help you keep your information organized quickly and easily.  Love this tool.

Note – when searching from your mobile device the system won’t filter on the “@” so you will get back any notes containing the text part of your context.  Not perfect but way better than nothing.

Mobile technology is growing by leaps and bounds in the U.S. and as such we’re finally catching up with the rest of the world in SMS or “texting.” The question is can educational technology apply this effectively for parents, faculty, and students?

Closing the loop

The frenetic nature of families causes them to be in many places at once.  Sports practice, school, work, extracurricular activities, they all take their toll on the “together-time” that many of us grew up with.  Texting gives schools the opportunity to reach out to families, students, and staff in a more convenient manner for most.  Information can be broadcast to a number of people easily through SMS services.  Groups can be selectively notified of events and news based on groups.  In aggregation it would appear that SMS services have many of the strengths of email with a faster delivery time and fewer issues.  However there are a number of things that must be taken into consideration before approaching a texting solution.

Dollars and sense

In most cases, SMS messages still charge the receiver as well as the sender of the message.  This can be an issue and not something you want to overlook.  If you send out 10 messages in a month you could be charging each recipient $1.00 based on  their phone service.  Making text messaging a service people can opt-in to is a much better idea than making it mandatory.  If you do make it optional, it cannot be your primary mode of contact.  It must be considered part of your overall communications plan.

Brevity is not always best

SMS messages by design are short and to the point.  When communicating something simple such as a school closing due to weather you may be fine.  Sharing something more involved or requiring greater explanation is not a good use of SMS.  Information can be misunderstood leading to issues, rumor, and innuendo.  Recommendation:  if you have something important to share and you use SMS, tell them to go to your web site for details and post the information there.

Rain, snow, dark of night

Not unlike email you have no way of knowing whether someone received your message unless you ask them.  Some systems do offer delivery confirmation but that is only if they are on the same carrier network as the receiver.   Establishing SMS as a early notification and reminder of notices  you have placed in other locations is a much more effective use because you are training your audience if all else fails to go to the source of the information.

The use of text messaging by schools isn’t nearly as controversial as text messaging by students but if you’re planning on implementing this type of a solution you need to take a much closer look at your mobile technology acceptable use plans and make sure they aren’t in conflict with your strategy.

One of the challenges I have faced is keeping all of the facets of my schedule synchronized. Between work, family, and other interests, maintaining multiple schedules can take as much time as the activities on the schedules. No matter where I am I need to know my work, family, and school schedule on demand. One step towards solving this has been getting all the calendar information to one calendar…in this case it’s Google Calendar.

Since all my events now filter to one calendar it just became a matter of getting that calendar onto my phone in a regular, reliable manner. In came GooSync to solve the problem and address my contacts and todos as well. Here’s how it works for me:

GooSync is a two part application. One part is loaded on the phone to schedule the connection to the web based account and control the sync on this end. The second part is the web account that is connected to my Google Calendar, Google Contacts and GooSync task list (they don’t support Google Tasks yet because there’s no API, but I’m sure they will when it’s ready.) The GooSync application runs on a scheduled sync to pull and push events from my Google Calendar. Now there are other applications out there that do similar but I have found the GooSync app to be exceptionally adept at handling multiple calendars from Google. My entries on my phone begin with [Fam] or [V95] or [CCS] for family, crew, or school events. Even better if I want to enter an event to show up on one of those calendars (which are shared with other people) I can create an entry beginning with one of those tags and it is pushed directly to that calendar. Definitely a time saver for shared group calendars.

My contact listing, while not miles long as many people have, is a vital part of my communications and organization. I like to keep only one list and have it accessible from multiple spots. GooSync channels my Google contact list to my phone and back again. It’s a simple enough concept but at least now I know when I email from Gmail or through my phone, I have the same list of people and addresses.

Finally…my task list. I was a user of Remember the Milk for a long time, but experienced a disappointing letdown in their sync support so I abandonded that ship. I use GooSync’s task manager now on the web side and my phone when mobile. The GooSync solution is effective because it meshes well with the category functions on the phone as well as offering a new Google gadget for my iGoogle page to manage my tasks from the computer.

Lots of moving parts that need to be kept working together. Sounds like the story of most of our lives. In this case, GooSync is the solution I’ve found that keeps the wheels turning for me.