TGIF. This was one of those weeks that didn’t seem like it was going to end. First, we had a tragic and shocking homicide in our usually quiet community on Wednesday, someone who had worked at our school for many years before retiring a few years ago. Someone who was very much loved.

Couple that with three long, extended days teaching 2.5 hour Weblogs and RSS classes to a willing but spent group of teachers who had been dealing with all sorts of stuff this week, and, well, you get the picture. The only thing that saved me yesterday was when we talked about RSS search feeds. That whole concept still gives teachers a jolt. Bloglines added about 15 new accounts yesterday.

So, I’m looking forward to going home and teaching my kids the right way to rake leaves, and then getting buried in the piles for at least a half an hour. Probably more. Maybe sit outside tonight with a jacket on and count stars. (Mid 40s tonight.) Maybe even fall asleep in front of a fire (after, or maybe during, the debates, of course.)
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Nancy Peckham at New Mexico State is doing action research on Weblog use in the classroom. She wants to know:

Can the use of BLOGS (Web logs) as the journal writing instrument in the classroom and/or for Action Research promote writing skills, individual voice, understanding of technology, and collaboration between students and teachers?

If you get a chance, you might want to take her survey.

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So I took Jorge’s advice and tried out Webnote to see if it might be what I’m looking for in terms of an online OneNote type app. It’s actually pretty wiki-ish in that anyone can add to your note page (if they know they URL.) You can drag your notes around to organize them, change the colors, and it has a filter where you can put in a word and bring up only those posts that contain it. Good for keywords. And the best is that there is an RSS feed to your notes. Interesting.

But here’s what it or anything else like this needs: a one-click toolbar button that lets me just highlight something on a page and have it automatically saved to my note file with a link. Now that would be very, very cool. And, I’d also like to be able to save to a folder of notes. I mean I know I can create as many note pages as I want, but I don’t want to have to constantly be making bookmarks on all my computers to remember how to get back to them. And finally, I want to be able to save graphics too.

But, hey, it’s a decent start.