Twenty slides displayed for 20 seconds each for a total time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. That's the formula for Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha was devised as a way to keep presenters focused and to keep an audience's attention. Pecha Kucha presentations have exactly 20 slides and the slides are set to automatically advance every 20 seconds. Sticking with this format allows for a multiple speakers to "take the stage" and keeps their messages concise.

When students, teachers, principals, or anyone who makes presentations use the Pecha Kucha format, their slides tend to have less text. Twenty seconds isn't enough time to dwell on a slide, much less a slide with more than a couple of bullet points. Instead of bullet points, many Pecha Kucha slideshows use photographs as the visual aid.

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Dealing with email can be time consuming and feel like a second job. I've seen some educators with thousands of messages in their inboxes. You won't find very many emails in my inbox because I take care of my email each day. It isn't easy and I'm not always successful, but my goal is to achieve Inbox Zero. That's right, everyday I try to completely clear all emails from my inbox.

It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but Inbox Zero is indeed possible. If you're like me, you use your inbox like a to do list: each email represents at least one task to complete. The task might be replying to a parent's inquiry, sending information to the school secretary, remembering a meeting, reading an article, etc. Productivity guru David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, says that productivity is Advanced Common Sense. Applying some Advanced Common Sense to how we approach email can help us make our inboxes seem deserted.

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The Arizona K12 Center is once again hosting sessions at the annual Microcomputers in Education Conference (MEC) at ASU. We are covering some great topics, including Web 2.0, GIMP software, personal productivity, wikis, Twitter, iPhones, and iPod touch. We have a one-page handout for each of the sessions. PDFs of the handouts are available below:

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When you hear the word wiki, you probably think of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. Wikipedia may be the largest wiki, but educators are creating their own wikis, large and small, to improve learning, communication, and collaboration.

A wiki is a website designed for multiple people to collaborate by adding and editing content. Some say wiki is a acronym for What I Know Is since a wiki as designed for multiple authors. However, the word wiki is actually Hawaiian and means quick. Wikis really are a fast way to make a web page or site. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use a wiki.

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