Evernote and I have been hanging around each other for awhile now. Occasionally I would find a teaching idea online and save it, but Pinterest took over and I rarely looked at Evernote anymore. Every now and then I would read an article about how wonderful Evernote is and take another look, but it just never clicked between us. I really thought I didn't need another place to store pictures of cute bulletin boards. But after reading Alyce's blog post, which led me to Alison at Eberopolis, I was suddenly looking at Evernote in a whole new way and found myself very attracted! (This sort of sounds like how I started dating my husband. We worked together for about a year, talked occasionally, and one day I suddenly I started thinking "Wow, he's kind of cute. We were married a year and half later!")
Anyway, I spent a couple hours yesterday reading about Evernote and decided to try using it to collect data on my students during Writer's Workshop. I installed the app on both my smartphone and Kindle Fire. I followed Alison's great tutorial and set up notebooks for each of my students.
Then I read Alison's post about emailing notes to Evernote. If you put the right information in the subject line, the note will even be sent to the right notebook. By this time, my family had decided I was nuts because I was just so darned excited when I tried emailing a practice note and it went right to the correct notebook!
So today I tried it out. I conferenced with several students while they were writing. Instead of taking notes in the 3-ring binder I set up for this purpose or on the sticky notes that I end up using because they are easier to carry, I just pulled out my phone and took my notes there. (I think using an Ipad or tablet with a stylus would be even better!) I even took a picture of one boy's writing and emailed it to his notebook so I could look at it more later.
My mind is racing with other ideas for using Evernote- recording a student reading his writing, reading conferences, anecdotal records during math and so much more. I think I am falling in love with this tool!
Have you used Evernote in your classroom? Please share your ideas and link up with Alison for her Paperless Challenge.
Maybe soon my desk and teaching table won't look like this:
Carol
I've never thought about using Evernote as a formative assessment tool!! I typically use an index card for each kiddo taped to a clipboard, but now I feel outdated! Haha! Thank you so much for sharing, Carol!
ReplyDeleteErin
Little Miss Primary
I'm so excited that you're giving Evernote a try! Much like you, I've had an account for ages, but it's only within the last month or so that I'm using it all the time. I use it on my computer during planning time, on my iPad with a stylus when I'm working with students, and I even used it at recess with my iPhone once this week when I wanted to document some kids investigating a math problem. The portability aspect of it makes it awesome and my love for Evernote is in full bloom.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up! Can't wait to read more!
Alison
Eberopolis: Teaching Reading & Writing with Technology
The mentality should be the more storage you use, the safer you are. It doesn’t really matter if the files you have in one device are just the same files you have on another drive. That's a larger safety net, which is always welcome given the technology we have today. Ruby@Williams Data Management
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