Thing 19: Jott

When you feel you just haven't gotten enough nagging (and perhaps need more), you can nag yourself with electronics. Okay, so maybe that casts a bad light on this Thing… so let's try again. Here's a story (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) to illustrate the reason for this Thing:

Jane is a teacher. Every night she stays up working on school work: planning, correcting, reflecting. Every morning she is up early so she can get to school with time to breathe.

On this very ordinary Tuesday morning, Jane gets up, showers, puts on her clothes (ugh, forgot to iron again), eats breakfast (remembering that they are almost out of milk and eggs) , brushes her teeth (oops, she needs to schedule that dentist appointment), puts on her makeup (almost out of mascara), picks up her school bag and is ready to walk out the door for her glorious day of work when Steve, her husband, trods slowly out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes. "Hey, remember that we have that thing tonight… oh, and the baby needs diapers at home and more wipes at daycare." It's a good thing that they've been married long enough that Jane knows exactly what "thing" Steve is talking about. She smiles, gives him a kiss and leaves for the day.

In the car on the way to work, Jane goes over her mental list. "Grocery store: milk, eggs, mascara?. Once I get to work: call dentist. Target: diapers and wipes… wait, can I get that at the grocery store? Hmmm… there was one more thing… what was that?"

As she simmers about what that last thing is, she pulls into school and walks up to her room. She has two students waiting (they actually came to school early!) for help with class. She starts to pull out worksheets and think about what steps she should take for each student for maximal understanding.

And what has happened to that mental list? By the time 3:00 hits, she's at 50% (at best)… and that's with the understanding that nothing else has been added to that list during her day (which is improbable).

The problem for Jane (and many of us) is that she is pretty sure she will remember… and that she doesn't have access to anything to write on when she gets (or thinks about) the information.

Jott, and programs like it, close this information gap. With Jott, you call in (on your cell/home/school phone) and leave a message (like "Remember the Milk!"). Jott then transcribes the information and sends you a text reminder for the time you set up.

Discovery Exercise

1. Go to Jott and create an account.
2. Call and send yourself a message/reminder.
3. Blog about your experience and the possible applications in education or for yourself.

Discovery Resources

Jott

Remember the Milk

Evernote

Challenge

1. Use Jott to post to your blog. (Now only possible by subscribing to the Jott service. It might be worth it!)
2. Sign up for Remember the Milk and Jott or e-mail to your Remember the Milk account. It separates your task by due dates and will e-mail you reminders. You can also sync this with your iGoogle page (which you automatically have b/c you have a Google ID). See Vicki Davis's Post on Rocking your Remember the Milk.
3. Use one or more of the discovery resources listed above and sync them with Google Calendar. Blog about your experience. (this one could be a Thing on its own…)