Posts tagged 2010

Near the end of every school year I imagine what I could’ve done better during the year to be organized and do as good as I can.  However, as summer is two long months, those ideals are typically long since forgotten when it comes time to actually get back to school.  This year is an exception: I wrote down what I wanted to do different this year.

I’ll forgo the typical “make good and regular work habits” and “integrate technology into my learning experience” spiel, instead I’m almost more interested in the low-tech solutions.  For starters, coil-bound notebooks are becoming more and more interesting.  Coil-bound notebooks are inexpensive, have many hundred pages, are slightly smaller than standard US letter size (which could make indexing easier), and are chronological.  That last fact alone is invaluable.  School is taught in a chronological manor — a topic is introduced, built upon, review, built higher, then tested on; only ever in that order.  Looseleaf in a standard binder is subject to rearrangement, loss, or other inconveniences that impact negatively on school life.  This year I will be integrating coil-bound notebooks deeply into my note organization.

Minimalism.  I’ve been steadily awakening to the beauty of minimalism in life.  This year my backpack (ordered from Dell, arrived today) is much smaller than any other backpack I’ve had since I was 12, only able to hold a 15″ laptop (*cough* or iPad *cough*) and a 2″ binder (or 2 2″ binders).  There are few extra pouches which I would normally preach as ways to hold your Purell or 3M lint roller, but those will have to find another home.  The backpack as a whole looks prim and tidy.  Additionally as opposed to my previous organization scheme which involved a separate pencil case, I’ll be solely using a binder-insert (2 ring, fabric, has zippers and pouches for pens) for all my writing instrument storage.  2x minimalism.

The last and possibly most exam-beneficial technique I’ll be using this year is a (MediaWiki) Wiki.  Last year I dabbled with a Wiki for storing biology notes, but couldn’t find a solid use-case for it in other courses (as it started too late to get the meat of my general science course).  For clarification, I did use it in Art to archive links to famous art pieces and tidbits for the final project; and I used it in English to carry written assignments back and forth between school and home.  As this wiki will be accessible by everyone, this is also a benefit.  Just before first semester exams last year I had some fifteen people add value to the Wiki — whether by adding notes, links, annotations, or editing text.  The Wiki itself was accessed more than 450 times before the first semester exams, and then another approximately 450 people before the second semester exams.  Given there were only about 200 people in Biology 11 during the whole year, I call that a success.