Creating notes in Evernote

I had mentioned Evernote in a posting last month while discussing details from the SSAAM conference in Winnipeg. I had the opportunity to put it into full-fledged practice today. I attended a meeting with the Student Services Administrator for the Interlake School Division and the resource teacher who provided so much technological expertise and training to division employees and families this year. We went over some of the details of the TILT position and projected the first few months of work in the new school year. As the whirlwind of ideas came rushing at me, I literally splattered the page with information. Taking notes on an iPad or laptop would have been more effective and appropriate, but the iPad I'll be using next year hadn't officially been released to my eager hands. So, I jotted details down in a haphazard format and hoped for the best. When I got home for the night and had the iPad in hands, I opened up the Evernote website, logged into my account and began to create notebooks for all the schools we had discussed and the particular needs of the students in attendance. I refered to my scribbled page of notes and created a new note for each notebook. At the end of the half hour, I had twelve notebooks with details about the roles of key players at each school and tasks that needed to be completed over the summer and into the early fall. What I love about this app is that it is truly an organizational marvel. If I want to take photos of displays, I can snap a pic, store it in a notebook and Evernote can actually search for words within that display. It takes voice recordings, which may be a useful tool when I'm too rushed to take notes during a school day. Those recorded memos can be stored within a notebook as well. I just started using this application, but I see it as being a great electronic organizer and something that has a lot of potential in an educational setting as well.

Which app for what?

I know it has been a little while since my last post, but I thought I would pop on here quickly to make note of an interesting app site called www.appadvice.com. It takes all the lovely apps in the Apple store and sorts them into a visually appealing, user-friendly array based on categories.  If you are an avid guitarist, there is a category for you to explore.  Engaged to be married? There are a variety of apps sorted into a wedding planning category as well.  Once you have chosen a category, click on a desired app and it redirects you to the Apple store for purchase.  There are both free and paid apps displayed with a short description accompanying each app.  Check out the apps for teachers category about halfway down the homepage!

Quizlet

In looking for a way to help students with reading and writing difficulties study terms for their Geography exam, I came across a useful website called quizlet.com. This site is great for two reasons.  First, it allows teachers or students to plug in terms and definitions to study for onto flashcards, which will read the written text aloud to the student when the student presses the speaker icon.  Second, it allows the student to play the 'scatter' game. Clicking on the term and moving it to the matching definition causes the information to magically disappear.  There is even a timer at the top of the page which keeps track of how long the student takes to match up the definitions to the terms.  Either of these applications are a great way to add variety to a student's exam preparation.  I created an account easily and made sure that the sets of flashcards that I had created for each chapter were available for public viewing.  Students don't need to create an account or have a password in hand to get access to this digital format.