One of the first apps I bought was Numbers, Apple's spreadsheet equivalent of Excel. Numbers is spreadsheet on the Mac, now iPad... Apple's equivalent to Microsoft Office. It's priced at USD$9.99. Price of a meal in a restaurant... I have many uses for Excel for work, data analysis, charts, tables for merge printing etc, etc. It also helps me keep track of practically anything I want... the limit is my own imagination.
This year, we have to make out a contract of exercises for students and keep track of the numbers and different types of exercises... Somehow people up there wants to infuse us with corporate practices. I think the planners executed this without much proper planning and as a result adds more burden to us. Not that I think it's not a good idea... I've seen many teachers upping their workload... LOL! But this can be made easier.
Now, to keep track of the exercise books pose a challenge of sorts cos you have to be really disciplined in tracking them; unless you have one exercise book for one type of exercise, which will then pose another set of problems.
Enter Numbers on a tablet... the Apple Ipad. Numbers of Ipad makes it possible for me to record, with great ease, all the different types of exercises for easy reference and quick count. And at the end of the month, I take the tally and merge print them into small forms, distribute them to my students and get them to paste it in their exercise books. I've been able to do that since school started this year but the thing is those who were supposed to observe and check on us have not been able to sign all those tiny chits in my students' exercise books! Goes to show... they can come out with plenty of ideas but not be able to oversee them as they should. Leaders cannot walk their talk.... but they expect us to walk their talk. Kinda skewed.... Plus my GK actually doubted my figures cos I guess it's just beyond comprehension that one is able to keep track with such detail.
Numbers has also enabled me to keep track of my LDP hours, meetings and all other stuff with fantastic ease. I can even keep track of my students' attendance record, fees payment and whatever information necessary. And as long as I have my iPad with me, those information can be called out with just a touch.
One thing I have to remind myself to do is to email myself the spreadsheets every now and then and leave it in my Google Doc... and I've cloud computing! Backups are important and I was reminded the hard way. Got caught early on when my data suddenly disappeared because I unwittingly touched something I wasn't supposed to. 8( Anyway, Information can always be drawn out as long as there is a wifi connection. And if that doesn't work... I still have my Huawei Ideos to fall back on as my own personal MIFI. The main wifi line in school is still not up and about.
I am getting the iPad2 when it becomes available; and right now, I am thinking of the 3G version. because of my school's hopeless WIFI connection at the moment.
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