Evernote
Name of Tool | Website URL | Cost | Download or Web-based | 1 sentence description of the tool |
Evernote | Tiered cost, basic is free. Student membership offered at a discounted price. | Both | Evernote is a cross-platform app that allows you to capture, share, and organize your thoughts and notes from any device, anytime. |
Description of the Tool
Evernote describes itself, quite aptly, as your “second brain.” It serves many purposes with the aim of satisfying all of your note-taking and information storage needs. This cross-platform app acts as a digital archive, comprehensive inbox, digital filing cabinet, task manager, daily journal, and more. Evernote’s unique appeal comes in the form of mass integration and IFTTT (If This Then That) support which means you can send content from other services like Gmail or Google Reader. Collect and store all of those random bits of information that accumulate in other areas, like on your phone or desktop of your laptop. Then use Evernote’s advanced tagging and search features to quickly and easily pull up any information you need. If you have ever wondered “where did I put that?” then Evernote is the app for you.
How to Use This Tool
First you will need to download Evernote for your device. Evernote is a free service but it also offers a Premium account option with extra features, like the ability to upload more data each month.
Sign in with Google or create a new account. We will use the Google sign in for this tutorial.
Evernote will prompt you to create a new account using your Google sign in information.
Once you’ve signed up, you will download the app to your device at www.evernote.com/download. For this tutorial we will be downloading the app to our computer, but you can easily download the app to your smartphone or tablet using the app store.
You can also get the Web Clipper extension for whatever browser you prefer. Just click the “Get Web Clicker” and approve the extension for your browser.
Save the download file by clicking “Save File”
And access the downloaded file by clicking on your browser downloads button and then the file.
Agree to the terms.
You’re in! Evernote asks you to complete these four steps to familiarize yourself with the app. Click the link to “Create your first note” to get started. Go through each of the prompts so you know how to use the notes, set reminders, save a web article, and sync it to your other devices.
Clicking New Note will allow you to type a quick note, write your to-do list, capture a picture, record audio, or store a digital document. We will use Evernote as a project management system to organize research, keep track of ideas, store related articles, and share information.
We have typed out some information about our project and want to share the note with a peer. Click Share, type the email address, and compose a message. Hit send!
Evernote also lets you tag your information. Tagging a note is an easy way to categorize notes so you can find all related topics with just a quick search. It’s not a necessary step since Evernote will search through all of your notes’ titles and content, but they’re a good way to organize topics. For this project, we will add the tag “eBook Project” to all of our notes.
If you want to be even more organized, you can save your notes in specific notebooks. For example, all of the notes related to school projects could go in a “School” notebook.
This notebook and all the other ones are filed in what you can think of as a stack. Notes form the pages of your notebook, and the notebooks are stacked together on your Evernote bookshelf. Make as many notes and notebooks as you want and organize them in a way that feels right to you.
Evernote is an incredibly versatile app with a masterful search function, highly customizable organization features, and endless ways to store, recall, and share information. From creating a meal plan to storing important tax documentation to organizing big projects, Evernote can really do it all!
How Can This Tool be Used by the Trainer/Teacher?
Evernote is the perfect classroom companion to support teachers and trainers. Use Evernote to plan and organize classes with tags. You can tag notes on a weekly basis or even just lesson by lesson. If you know that certain content should always be taught at a specific time, you can tag that content accordingly. For example, maybe you have an icebreaker you love to use during the first week of class, or a go to template for your syllabus. You can tag these items as “week 1” and call them up every year with ease.
Evernote’s sharing abilities allow you to share notes with parents, students, or other teachers. You can also use it jot notes or save webpages that you want to recall later or share in class. You can even store templates like grade sheets, classroom assessment forms, or any other document you might need and have it easily accessible from any device at any time. Evernote would also be the perfect way to continue to share material if you are gone or have an absent student. Share your notebook for the class with your students and they can keep up with work in your absence, or theirs.
Use the digital filing system to simplify grading. You can scan graded work and scantrons, add them to Evernote, and enter them into your gradebook when you have time. It’s always a good idea to keep digital backups of student assignments and Evernote provides the perfect place to store them.
How Can This Tool be Used by the Trainer/Teacher to Support Student Learning?
If you right click on a notebook, you can make it public and share the URL link with your class. Then everything you want to add to the notebook can be viewed by your students or their parents. You can audio record messages, or even a lecture, for your students and add them to the notebook. Take pictures of the whiteboard and add that to the notebook too so students can access them if they miss a class or pull them up if they need a refresher on the work you did in the lecture. You can tag or title each photo with the date of the class and even the content reviewed so it can be easily searched by your students. Keep all of the handouts, assignments, study guides, and assignments in Evernote and tag them so they’re easily accessible. Create a notebook or tag for each class so you always have the information at your fingertips.
How Can This Tool be Used by Students?
Students can think of Evernote as a digital bookshelf where they can save everything from classwork to schedules, important emails to study notes. Create notebooks for each course and store notes in the relevant notebook. Keep notes from lectures, labs, projects, and study groups together and tag them for easy searches. Evernote will even use character-recognition to scan photographs of handwritten notes, making them searchable too. Then use the pen tool in Evernote to highlight or write directly on your notes with your phone or tablet. Use the audio record option to record lectures or meetings. Then set a reminder to refer back to the lecture and notes to get ready for a test.
Evernote simplifies group projects by enabling students to share notebooks with their group members. Give everyone editing permission and each person can complete their own tasks in one place. Create a to do list for the group in the shared notebook so everyone can check off their work as they complete it. Keep all of your campus information handy by using the Web Clipper to save important web pages from your student portal or school website. Instead of bookmarking campus dining hall hours and constantly pulling up the page to see if you missed breakfast, just enable offline notebook access and use Web Clipper to save the page. Then even when you don’t have internet connection, you can view the page.
Training and Other Resources
Evernote has an excellent user interface and is designed with intuitive tutorials, but these articles provide great additional information about the app that will let you totally organize your entire life. Check them out below:
How to use Evernote to organize your life by The Verge walks you through some of Evernote’s basic features. http://bit.ly/2eLRSEU
Inc. interviews Evernote creator Phil Libin and gets his perspective on the app and what he hoped it would do for people. This article gives great insight about the story behind Evernote. http://on.inc.com/2FLgR7A
Lifehacker’s tutorial shows you some of the star features Evernote offers. The app may seem lackluster when you first start using it, but Lifehacker assures us that once you start really using Evernote, you will find that it is indispensable. http://bit.ly/2ICKoOE
The self-described Evernote Unofficial Manual is a comprehensive tutorial for the advanced Evernote user. This tool is so incredibly versatile and customizable and Make Use Of delves deep into the many uses of Evernote. http://bit.ly/2pmkvti
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