Wakato Academy

Wiki's

Have you heard about the newest thing in Internet collobartion, its called Wiki's.   I just found out about this cool new way to communicate via the internet.  I had heard about Wikipedia, even used it a few times.  But it never occured to me that I could use Wiki's for my own personal use.  Well I have just discovered these cool new tools and I am imagining all the great ways that these could be used in a homeschool setting.

One of the first ways we are going to try using them is with our First Lego League group.  They often have to work on programming and robot designs outside of class but until know they didn't have a practical way to share those ideas with each other.  By setting up a Wiki they can easily create, share and edit as they work through the challenges together. 

Basically there are several services that offer free Wiki's and there similiar to having an editable webpage.  You have the option to set them as public or private so only those you invite can view and edit them.  

Once you have your account set up you create your document by choosing edit at the top of the page.  Then you invite the rest of your friends/group members to the wiki.  Once there they can each get on and edit the page and then save it again so the next person coming sees the changes and can add more changes or revisions and so on until the group has a finished project.

So how are we going to use these in our group, well the plan at this point is to give each of the kids there challenges and then set up a round robin where each person in the group logs in on a particular day and works on the assignment and so on around the group until they have what they think is a polished answer to the challenge. 

I'll let you know how it goes but in the mean time you can check them out at www.pbwiki.com and dream about how you might use them in your homeschool or even in your daily life.  Me and dh are using one too to help keep track of we are at on various projects were working on.

Technology in the home and school...

I am on a quest to help both my house and my school run more efficiently.  I know sometimes the computer can be more of a hinderance than a helper but what I have found is that if you carefully analyze the intended use and alternative options that you can strike a balance between where technology can truly benefit your household and where it will just end up being more time consuming.  In my evaluations I have decided that using the computer as my primary filing system will benefit me in saved time and increased efficiency in both my house and homeschool as well as increased space thanks to the greatly reduced amount of paper that needs to be stored. 

I guess I should preface this with the fact that paper is a big problem in our house.  I have tons of it, I save everything, have trouble getting rid of anything and I love to keep all the little creations my little ones make...unfortunatly it all takes up a lot of space and often times I can't find what I need when I need it because there's just too much. 

So my journey starts this weekend.  I upgraded my printer to a better printer with a scanner (got a great deal on it from Costco) and purchased a software program that helps you in setting up an electronic filing cabinet.  I have the software all set up and have been working on making some adjustments to fit my household needs, like adding electronic portfolio cabinets for storing photo's of projects and scanned images of completed papers.  So far I love the software, it provides a pretty comprehensive skeleton from which to work from and is really easy to adjust and change to fit your families needs.  It was originally $50 but I found a discount code for 30% off which made it only $35 for the software.

I posted the link previously...the discount code is "dummies", if you want to purchase it.

Stay tuned for more information on how were using technology to improve our home and school....

Taming the PAPER MONSTER using the computer

This seems to be the a really big problem in my house and I know it is in others as well.  I am not very good at filing, never have been unless I was in an office where things were clear-cut, at home things are never clear cut.  A couple of years ago I purchased a product that gave you categories and sections and files to put all your records in but the problem was by the time I got it, I was already drowning so getting it set-up has never actually happened.  I've worked on it here and there but never got it going.  I'm sure if I would have had this product 10 years ago when I was first married and just starting out with all the filing that it probably would have worked wonders and I would still be at least semi-organized but I didn't and can't go back only forward.  So what is the answer to taming the PAPER MONSTER?  Truth is I'm not sure myself but I've recently come across a plan that I think will actually work.  I am going to try it and I'll let you know how it goes.  Here's the plan if your interested.

The first step is making sure you have the right equipment:

You need a computer and scanner.  Depending on what you need to file a simple flatbed scanner can work or you might want one with a document feeder so you scan a whole stack at once.  You might also want to consider whether you need to file legal sized documents although if your scanner won't do legal it is rare that most people scan legal sized documents and on the rare occassion that you had this type of document a couple dollars a the office supply store would probably do the job. 

You need a software program.  Its possible to create file folders on your computer yourself but for the price I recommend checking this out...Its called OrganizeMY Electronic Filing Cabinet http://www.org-matters.com/.  This program has filing cabinets already set up as well as a spot to manage financial matters and can link to outlook for setting up reminders of things you need to do.  If you have a palm pilot you can take this one-step further to having it automatically transferred to your daily schedule.

You'll need something for back-ups.  This can range from a cd or dvd burner (dvd's hold more data) to an external hard drive.  One person I read about used a Maxtor One Touch external hard drive that automatically backed up his data daily and then he manually burned a DVD back-up about once a month. 

Once you have the equipment setting up the files is easy.  Just set aside 15 min a day and start scanning, with the software you can choose to scan a set of documents as 1 document or individual documents so if you have a stack of 1 page bills you can scan those as individual documents and then scan a multi-page document like a contract as a single document.  When you set up the scan you just tell it which file to send it to and your done.

The best part about this system is that it also manages all your electronic documents as well, you can use it to file e-mails, word documents, everything you do so that everything is just a click away, neatly organized in one spot and the PAPER MONSTER can go find another house to live in :-)