Help!!!! Every time I blink there is a new tech tool or app. How do I stay in the loop? How can I organize them? I don't have enough post its to track it all!!! Ugh! As a teacher it can be mind boggling to think about all the tech tools available. Even more overwhelming could be understanding how to integrate it into the curriculum to transform learning and not just using tech because it is cool. While I am no expert, I wanted to share my method. I hope you may find one tool to assist your continued exploration of tech tools and apps. Evernote At the center of my organization is Evernote. The big reason is that it works across all platforms so whether I am on my phone, computer or really any device that has an internet connection, I can access my content. You can tag notes, create notebooks and easily search everything. In addition, there is a web clipper that you can add to your browser to easily clip sections of webpages to your Evernote account. Below is a screen shot of my Evernote account. Feedly Since Google Reader is no more, I use Feedly to manage all the blogs/sites that I follow. To see a list of blogs/sites I follow, check out "My Feeds" note in Evernote. Feedly is a great tool for me to catch up on the latest tech ideas without having to navigate to every website/blog that I like to read. Another great feature about Feedly is the other apps that seamlessly work with it. You can see the options in the image below. The three options that I use most often are Pocket, G+1 and Buffer. Pocket is a tool that allows you to save articles for later reference. I created a Pocket account so that I could use an IFTTT recipe to automatically create a note in my Evernote account. This recipe is triggered anytime that I add an article to Pocket. When I am browsing articles in my Feedly stream and find one that I want to save, I click the Pocket icon. The IFTTT recipe does the rest for me. It takes that article and automatically creates a new note in my Evernote account. Buffer Buffer is a tool that lets you schedule Tweets as well as Google Plus posts. When I am looking through my Feedly stream and find something I want to Tweet or +1, I choose to Buffer it so that they are spaced out instead of blowing up my Twitter/Google Plus feeds. Putting it all Together This may sound like a complex process but the big part would be creating accounts for Feedly, Evernote, Pocket and IFTTT. These are all free services. Once you have your Feedly account, you can add blogs/sites to follow. When you find interesting tech ideas in your Feedly stream, simply click save to Pocket. IFTTT will follow the recipe you created and create a new note in your Evernote account. You can then move your notes around in Evernote and put them into notebooks to keep them categorized for future reference. Check out the short video below. I used my phone to show the steps that I just outlined above. ***One thing to note---If you use the web version of Feedly, you have the option to connect your Evernote account and save directly to Evernote from Feedly. Also, if you have the Evernote Web clipping tool installed on your browser, you can quickly clip blogs/websites directly to your Evernote account.
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Evernote may not be a familiar tool for some. As a matter of fact, I only began exploring Evernote last school year. I heard lots and lots of talk about it but had a hard time figuring out how it could fit into my classroom. After a year, my entire workflow is driven by Evernote. My students use it to create digital portfolios for the school year. In addition, we have used Skitch for simple annotation of images. Evernote offers a free plan. In addition, their is a desktop client, web version as well as apps for about every device. They also offer a monthly or annual plan as well. I pay for the monthly plan which is $5/month. Lesson PlanningAs much as I would like to say that I only do planning at school, it is never a reality. There are times when I am at home, on the go or in a meeting that I remember something or find a resource that I want to add to my plans. With Evernote I am able to add to my plans wherever and whenever. Below is a sample template that I have created for my weekly plan. I just copy this template into a new note for each week. Sub PlansWith the increase of technology in my classroom, I am never sure how familiar or comfortable my subs will be with the tech tools. One of the nice things about Evernote is attaching files to your notes. You can also share notes. When I have subs, I make a new note specifically for the sub. Once my note is created, I will copy the URL and send it to the sub ahead of time if possible. If not, I open it up in my web browser, book mark it, then drag the book mark to my desktop to make a shortcut. All the sub will have to do is turn on the computer and open the shortcut on the desktop. All the files needed will be displayed via the shared note. The sub will be able to click on any attachments and have them open. No more explaining how to navigate where you saved files on your computer. You can click here to see what a sub would see.
In my 1st grade classroom we currently have 5 iPads. These 5 iPads are used during centers, small/large group instruction and one-on-one. An example of my first graders using the iPads is that we use Evernote and Educreations to create digital portfolios. Currently my students can share their digital portfolios by sharing their notebooks on their Kidblog. However, this adds an extra step into the process of sharing their digital portfolio. I came across a post on the iLearn Technology blog. The site highlighted was called Postach.io. Postach.io instantly creates a blog post base on your notes in Evernote. To get started you create a Postach.io account. Once you have created an account, you are able to set up a "site." This will serve as the blog for your notes that are published to Postach.io via Evernote. After you have created your site, you will be asked to authorize your Evernote account with Postach.io. At this time you can choose a notebook to dedicate as the central location for notes you want to be published to Postach.io. Upon setting up your notebook in Evernote, you will simply add any notes you want to show up on your Postach.io page into the notebook you established as your default blog publishing notebook. All you do is add the tag "published" to have your note show up as a blog post. You add the tag "page" to have it posted as a page instead of a blog post. Super simple and a cool way to get content from Evernote instantly to a blog. Looking forward to trying this out. I previously posted how I have been trying to integrate Evernote as a tool for cataloging student artifacts of their learning. To compliment Evernote, I have also been using Skitch. This tool allows me to annotate over my pictures that I take of the artifacts. Skitch is also available on the app store. I have it installed on my iPad and iPhone to make recording artifacts in my classroom a point and shoot task. Below is an example of how I used Skitch to capture an image of a student's spelling test. Using Skitch, I made a note that the student knew it was a "D" but wrote the letter "B" in place. This is a very low student. This is great progress for this student to know the two sounds. By taking this picture and annotating, I will have a quick, easy reminder during conference as to why I wanted to share this artifact. After recently attending the ITEC conference in Des Moines, Iowa, I revisited my Evernote account. With parent teacher conferences quickly approaching, I find myself wondering what I can do differently to provide a valuable experience for parents at conferences. Many times they are confused by the "teacher talk" during these short meetings. I wanted a tool to visually show parents their child's strengths and areas for improvement. Evernote provides a free tool (limited monthly uploads) to categorize and catalog each student's work. In addition, apps are available for the iPhone/iPad in the app store. I have since created a premium membership and created a folder in Evernote for each of my students. My goal in the future is to allow students the opportunity to catalog their learning experience with Evernote but for the time being I will be using my iPad and iPhone to collect artifacts for the upcoming conferences. To find out much more on how to use Evernote as an ePortfolio tool check out Rob Van Nood's blog about how he has used it in his classroom for multiple years. |
Andrew FenstermakerInstructional Technology Coordinator | Innovation Coach | Google Certified Innovator | Presenter | Blogger | Adjunct @UiowaEducation | Owner @kids_f_i_r_s_t |