What takes the most time when you're teaching is grading.
Also time-consuming: documenting discipline issues and parent contact. And, when you're new: creating worksheets/problem-sets, lab handouts, quizzes, tests, and exams.
I half-agree with this. I don't need to work from a script, but if you want to do really high-quality work with students your plans need to be laid out pretty carefully. Students should be able to produce professional-level work in high school, in their area of highest interest and ability. We need to do some pretty well thought-out planning to help students work at that level. Once the planning is done, I work from bullet points. But at some point, for consistently high-quality curriculum, we need more than bullet points.
What takes the most time when you're teaching is grading.
I disagree with this. Certainly many teachers spend a lot of time grading. But with good use of peer feedback and modeling, grading does not need to dominate a teacher's time.
Also time-consuming: documenting discipline issues and parent contact.
Yes, although education is a holistic profession. The better we plan and deliver meaningful learning experiences, the fewer discipline issues we have.
I've noticed in Staples that they have paper templates for those but I'm wondering if anyone actually uses them at all.
I love this analogy! I'd say it's like programmers working in TextEdit though. Can you tell me your opinion about lesson planning tools in detail?
http://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-do-programmers-...
Education is one field where tech solutions have a long way to go. I believe copyright and cost are two issues that need to be thought about carefully in any ed-related technology venture.
For example, I am pretty sure most teachers still do all their lesson planning using word processing software, which is like architects working in MS Paint. Teachers need a well-designed lesson planning tool. That tool needs to be open-source to see widespread use, for a number of reasons.
I am excited to see where ed tech goes in the next 10 or 20 years. Tell us a little more about what you are thinking, and I'd love to share some more specific thoughts.