The Power of FitBit

I've struggled to manage time in class, to remember to stop with a few minutes left to close, give announcements, whatever. This is compounded by the fact that our classroom clocks are not synchronized with each other nor with our MacBook/iPad clocks. So I'm never exactly sure when the bell is going to ring.

A few years ago when I was struggling with this, I thought about setting a silent alarm on my FitBit, but I thought it seemed tedious to have to go in each day to turn off or on an alarm for each class because we have a rotating block schedule.

On the first day of school, we spent a while playing Mao. It was really important to me that we had about five minutes at the end to debrief because I did not want them going home on day one saying that they played cards in math and have no idea what the purpose was. I decided to try the FitBit alarm. And I LOVED it. It was absolutely perfect as a reminder in each class. My back was to the clock and we never finished a game, so I certainly would have run out of time without the FitBit alarm.

But could this really work long term? I mean, setting alarms for one day was manageable, but would I really do it each day as the year went along?

I'm mostly concerned about my math classes because I have the timing set up differently in theology. For one day, that means I only need one alarm. For the other day, it's two. As I walk through my class, monitoring progress, answering questions, and checking in with my girls while they work, I don't have to worry about what time it is. I have all of the alarms scheduled but none repeat. That way, each day, I can just go in and "turn on" the ones I need that day. It's going to get annoying when I have to account for schedule change days, but I still think the benefit is greater than the annoyance.

At this point, I am thrilled with using my FitBit in this way and sort of annoyed with myself for not trying it years ago when I first thought of it. It helps that I have the FitBit app on my iPad as well, so for days like today when I realized at the beginning of class that I hadn't turned on the alarm, I can easily go in and do so even though I don't have my phone in class.