If you're reading this then you've nearly made it to the end of the school year. My daughter made a comment a couple weeks ago how the school year seems so long when you're going through it but then when you look back at it, it doesn't seem that long at all. I agree 100% with that but would also like to add that the more you've taught, the faster the years seem to go. 25 years ago I was finishing my first year of teaching and feeling very accomplished, relieved and excited for the break. But I also had and excitement for all the things I wanted to try to improve upon and change for my second year. I'm proud to say that I kept that mentality throughout most of my entire career. Excited for the break but also had a ton of ideas that I couldn't wait to implement for the next year.
It's in that vein that I offer my end-of-the-year digital closeout & cleanup tips and suggestions.
Assess Your Digital Assessments
Review your digital resources. Make a list of the frequently used tools, apps and websites.
TIP: Make a spreadsheet or doc listing all of them. Keep track of what you use them for, whether they are a subscription or not, whether you roster students in these apps, etc.
Evaluate how effective these apps and tools were the past year and whether you want to continue with them or look for a suitable replacement. If you created a document, share and compare with your colleagues. See if there is a possibility for collaboration, see if you are both using similar apps and could agree to use the same app.
It's better to try this now then once you get rolling in the next school year.
Google Classroom Clean Out
Almost everyone seems to be using Google Classroom in some form or another. Some teachers use it to manage their handouts and other documents, some teachers are using it as a complete Learning Management System (LMS). Regardless of how you use it, cleaning it up at the end of the school year is very important. Not only will it give a sense of closure, but it will also help you to easily set up your classes for next year.
One thing to remember is that there is a master folder in your Google Drive called "Classroom." Within that folder are subfolders with the title of EVERY class you've ever created or been a part of. Within those folders are all of the documents and student work you've created or assigned within that class. It might already be quite large and overwhelming to look through. Do not fear, every minute is another minute in which you can turn it all around.
Here are several suggestions for a thorough "Classroom cleansing."
Return All Work - make sure all assignments have been graded and returned.
Do Not Copy Your Classrooms - this will make or continue to make a whole mess of things in your Google Drive. Instead, create new classes for next year and reuse individual assignments from previous classes.
Export Grades - Open any assignment and click on the icon to export grades to Google Sheets. Having a backup is never a bad idea.
Remove ALL Students - if the class is done and all assignments are returned and the students are done for the school year, remove them from your class. If you don't, they will still be able to access your class next year through their archived classes.
Delete Student Documents - in the Classroom Google Drive folder, search for files NOT owned by you (you need to return the work first), then delete the files.
Archive Class - the final step. This will remove the class from your active dashboard but you can still access all of the content if you want to copy assignments and resources into next year's classes.
Clean Up That Inbox....You Won't Regret It
I am a student of the "Inbox Zero" philosophy. I used to have a completely out of control email inbox but I took the time several years ago to make some changes and now I am proud to say that MOST of the time, my inbox is clean and clear at the end of the day. It's not something that you need or can do all at once but you can start on the path to a cleaner inbox with a few simple steps.
Delete, Delete, Delete - I found myself hanging on to WAY too many emails. If it's older than this school year, delete it. If it's the end of the year and it's older than the month of May......delete it. If you think it has an important attachment or something you need to keep track of for later, snooze it, make a task out of it and move it to a label folder or download what you need and get rid of it.
Speaking of Labels - I've created about two dozen labels, when an email comes in, I give it a label. If I don't have a label that fits, I make a new label. Every email has it's place. Granted, many of them have a place in the trash but every email has it's place. If you're knowledgeable about creating filters, you can set your emails up to automatically add labels to specific emails (i..e. any email coming from my supervisor gets an "NBEC" label).
Unsubscribe from Unnecessary Emails - The more I have signed up for apps, services, resources, the more I have been bogged down by subscription emails. I start to get very particular about signing up for things and reading all of the fine print about receiving emails about news and offers but it still doesn't stop the constant flow of subscription emails. Gmail can figure out when an email comes from a distribution list and will offer an "Unsubscribe" option. You can also scroll to the bottom of almost every subscription-based email and find an unsubscribe link. Unfortunately, this isn't only an end of the year task. I try to stay on top of this all the time.
Back It Up, Please!
It's as simple as this: if you care about it, back it up.
If you have files on your computer.....your physical device.....back them up!
Once upon a time in the not too distant past, I had just started the school year. I had a relatively new computer. I had spent the previous years operating under the assumption that my computer was backing up to our district's backup servers (it was not). My computer, just for no reason, would not fully boot up and I had the "spinning color wheel of death" (Mac users will understand that reference). Turns out, my hard drive had failed. Our tech staff worked to recover files from it but were not able to. I had lost pretty much everything that I couldn't recover from Google. I had only just started using Google Drive as cloud storage.
Back. Up. Your. Files.
If you have a Google account it is as simple as going to your File Manager (Finder) and dragging all of the files on your desktop or in your Documents folder and dragging them into your Google Drive.
If you have another method of cloud storage, most of them are also as simple as a drag and drop method.
Now, of course, you should create a folder or move them to preferred places in your Drive but I'll leave that up to you.
