As I was lurking around for cool new Web 2.0 tools, I came across an interesting interactive program called Evernote. After downloading and playing with it a bit, my mind started racing as to how useful this program could be just while in school! The basic premise of Evernote is to give you the ability to catalogue anything you come across, whether it be on the web, notes you take, or even pictures. There have been countless times while doing research for a project, or planning a lesson that I can’t seem to find certain material I had seen before that I want to refer back to. This program keeps everything you tag and – get this – allows you to search through it, even words that appear in photographs. At first, I didn’t believe that it would find words in photos, but then I took a picture of a poster in my office, and then searched for words that appeared in it. I was shocked when it not only found the picture, but highlighted the word I was searching for!
As I started to think about how one could use this in a classroom, all kinds of possibilities arose. One course I teach is a Radio/TV Production class where students learn about radio and television journalism, entertainment and experience the media industry first hand by producing their own program. At the end of each semester they have to turn in a portfolio blog that lists everything they’ve been a part of, accomplished and researched. This program would be an outstanding tool to help keep all of their notes, photos and websites together when they’re making their portfolio to turn in. It also helps to remind them what they’ve done!
I can think of so many ways to use this as an educator as well – lesson planning files for all of your classes, professional development, leadership roles and many others!
I think the Evernote tool is excellent for teachers. When it comes to planning, I like to have everything right there in front of me, but sometimes stuff just seems to wander away. I see Evernote as a way of compiling everything in one place and having the ability to access the data when I need it.
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