Use What You Have!

I was having lunch with a colleague yesterday.  We were discussing networking with each other in order to “Grow our Business.”    Our discussion took many different directions, including personal and family concerns, how those concerns lead to our chosen profession and, of course, the effect of the economy on growing our businesses.  I was talking about my methods of helping students become more organized and things that I have seen on the internet about marketing. 

In my mind, there were two topics that intermingled and I could not separate the two.  One topic was issues with organization in clients with an executive function disorder and the other was gaining more clients without spending an enormous amount of money.  I happened to mention that I might be interested in a marketing course taught by a physical therapist.  His company, called IndieFree, explores a number of methods to increase our income.  One of his phrases is “Use what you have.”  In this economy, it makes a lot of sense to use the resources that you currently have without having to purchase more.  

So what does this have to do with executive function disorder?  Well, students with executive function disorder are very often disorganized.  They are often unable to locate assignments that were completed the night before.  These students are at risk of losing points on assignments that are simply missing.  This is one of those gray areas.  Students should have the opportunity to produce the assignment by the end of the day.  How can this be accomplished independently by the student?  It’s easy, “Use what you have!”  Or you can get free!  

Most of us have a G-mail account.  With the G-mail account, comes a whole compliment of resources that frequently go unused.  Google supplies free word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software.  Not only does Google provide you with free software, they also provide you with free storage!  Using what you have becomes easy.  If a student has a handout to complete, once completed the handout can be scanned and uploaded to the Google Drive.  Most school districts allow students to have access to Google Drive during the school day.  Missing assignments can then be printed and delivered to the teacher on the day that the assignment is due.  Problem solved! 

Once a student has learned how to scan a document and upload it to the Google Drive, it only takes 1-2 minutes to complete.  A parent can check homework on the Google Drive at any time.  Of course, it would be optimal for the parent to supervise uploading to the Google Drive.  In the next day or two, I will post the directions on how to use the Google Drive to store homework assignments on my [Freebies] web page, www.mseleanorsapples.com.  You can also go to https://drive.google.com to check things out!