Summer

Since it is summer, and I am a teacher and not collecting a pay check for anything for the first time since I was sixteen, I, of course, am sitting poolside each and every day beneath a white, wide-brimmed hat and reading Harlequin novels by the handful. While this may touch some truth, I, as a teacher, still find myself irrevocably succumbing to work.
This summer I took the two day course for OneNote, and sprung from there into attempting to establish some solid notebooks for course planning. The number or hours donated to learning the next, new technology always surprises me, as does the turn over of the next, new technology. OneNote really seems like an advantage and time saver, once learned and set-up; it is also intriguing in how it can be utilized in the classroom, as well. Now, if students only had access to the program on their own! The added benefit of the in-district course was that many of us were able to share "here's what I do" with the tablets. This is always invaluable time that we could certainly use much, much more of throughout our institute days: learning pods!
A few other technology tidbits this summer include: enticing teachers with whom I have summer contact to grab a tablet and learn/play with it, discussing training options, fielding email q's/ideas, sorting through optimal web design with the technology staff at Fremd (they are GREAT!), and tracking my email time. The email time froze my medulla oblongata (which eliminates breathing and such...): I discovered that WORK email WHEN I'M NOT IN ANY SESSION, over the summer, took between 1 - 1.5 hours each day. This only applied to when I checked my email daily. I strolled away from all computers for a week or so, and suffered partial blindness when I opened Lotus Notes upon my return to technology.
I suspect the email time warp is due to reading and re-reading for accuracy/tone/understanding taking longer than listening one time to a person speaking. Also, there is delay in conversing and discussing questions and ideas so we think more (more redundantly?) about the topic before responding; and do our response first mandate clicking to check something first? For time management, this lack of processing organization must cause more time loss than discussions that are in person.
Our schedules are constantly disturbed by email, not just in receipt or sending, but in our to-do list of the day. It's as though we are building a barn, and keep getting new plans and designs as we construct, not just for our one barn, but for new ones that must be started immediately. So, jump from task to task and barn to barn; we really struggle when our supplies for the one barn assigned to us run out due to the othe barn designs emailed to us. Lastly, it is obvious that there is much more communication due to email (a good effect), which clearly takes task time, and our composition of emails surely takes more time to compose, type, read over, edit, attach, and send, than a dialog in person. So, the question is then, which is easier, in long-term truth? Both, I believe, but more desgnated time for the additional technological tasks born new to teachers would alleviate stress and overwork, better enabling stronger teacher contributions over all.