Evernote in the Classroom

Post date: Jan 21, 2013 9:30:08 PM

7. How Evernote Can Help Your Online Organization and Teach Non-Fiction!

WRITTEN BY: KATE PETTY - ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEB• 07•12

Evernote is a social bookmarking site that is web-based and has syncing mobile apps. It allows me to create folders (private or public) and then usher notes, video, photos, audio, and emails into which ever folder I choose. It also allows for hashtags to find my information quickly.

Click here to go my detailed explanation of Evernote on my “Useful Apps” page.

Why Evernote Can Be A Great Online Organizational Tool:

I am an avid reader. When I’m not reading a book, I am always catching up on my RSS feed. Many times I come across information that I want to save. For instance, I created a folder in my Evernote account called “Professional Development.” Now, every time I find an article that I want to save about teachers/teaching, I email the article to my Evernote account. Even better, when I add @Professional Development in the subject line, Evernote will automatically file the article in that folder. Evernote even allows me to add hashtags in the subject line and will sync them with my account when the email arrives!

How about another use!

As mentioned above, I can type notes right into a note and add it to any folder. Why is this useful? My iPad and I were recently at technology conference. I opened a note in Evernote on my iPad (I have a bluetooth keyboard for it- AMAZING!) and took notes throughout the workshops and key-note speech. I filed it, along with all of the useful websites that I learned about, under Professional Development with a OCCUE hashtag– now I can quickly and easily find my notes and all of the information I was given at the conference.

How to Use Evernote to Simplify Teaching Nonfiction:

I just created a unit on advertising for my high school students. As I was online researching advertising, I came across a lot of really good articles and YouTube videos that I decided my students would read and watch. I went to my Evernote account, created a public folder, and emailed everything I came across to the folder. I gave my students the url for the folder (Evernote will supply a url when you make a folder public) to access information.

In the subject line of each entry, I wrote the name of the article/video and the date that it was to be viewed. In class a volunteer-student sat at my computer and typed notes into an Evernote note which was projected onto the screen as we discussed issues.

By the time we were done, I had four YouTube Videos, four articles, and each class had their own set of notes that were taken as a class in class for them to review. They had access to the folder and its contents using either the link provided to them or, by linking the folder to their own Evernote accounts, in their Evernote app.

Click here for the advertising folder described.

Students Can Use Evernote:

Many of my students use Evernote to organize themselves too. They’ve created folders for each of their classes. While they email articles related to those classes to their folders, they also take their class notes in class by typing them into an Evernote note and putting it in the corresponding folder. They also use Evernote to record their homework assignments throughout the day.

Don’t you wish you had a tool like this in high school?