Organize yourself with Evernote

My desk tends to be covered with sticky notes. Sometimes when I'm ambitious, I color code them. Sometimes when I'm scatterbrained (which seems to be most days), I forget the color-coding system. Sometimes the sticky notes lose their stickiness and then float off my desk never to be seen again. It's really quite a flawed system. Solution? Evernote.


A few summers ago I was introduced to this amazing program at the Nebraska Writing Project's three-week Technology Institute, and I've been hooked ever since. In its simplest form, Evernote is a place you can keep notes and archive them using a series of labels and notebooks. You can sign up for an Evernote account that is stored on the cloud, downloaded to your computer, and any mobile devices you want. Once signed up, you can create "notebooks" to organize your notes. So, I have a notebook for each of the classes I teach, a notebook for recipes, a notebook for technology related items, etc. etc. Then whenever I want to remember something, instead of writing it down on a sticky note that will probably end up stuck to the back of some random kid's paper, I open up my Evernote account, click "new note," type it up, and drop it into the appropriate notebook. You can even tag your notes to organize them more. So in my English 9 notebook, I have my notes organized by units.

A screen shot of my Evernote account.

I have the Evernote app on my iPhone as well, so I can add something to my Evernote account on my phone, and it will sync automatically to the Evernote app on my computer. I can also email and text notes to my Evernote account. When you download Evernote to your computer, you also then have the opportunity to take a screen shot of a webpage and save it into Evernote. Evernote also has amazing text recognition. Once I was in a meeting and didn't have my phone or computer, so I scribbled a note on a napkin. Later I took a picture with my phone of the napkin-note, sent the photo to my Evernote, but forgot to title it. Later when I opened my Evernote account to try and find the note, I typed in my search bar a word that I remember writing on the napkin, and guess what...Evernote found the note for me in my account that contains hundreds of notes! Basically, you're streamlining and organizing your notes.

Educational applications:

• Helps keep students organized: Last spring my seniors were required to complete a weekly blog post about a socially relevant topic every Friday (one of the blog posts would eventually become their end of term research paper). Each day I gave them time to browse through news sites, blogs, and other articles, so anytime they found something they liked that might make for an interesting blog post, they saved it in their Evernote account as way to keep track of all of their good finds. I had them write short notes about each item they saved to remind them of why they saved the article---it was almost like an annotated bibliography by the end of the semester. Click here to read more about Evernote for schools.
• Helps keep yourself organized: Keep track of all of those wish-lists, resources, websites, notes, etc. Sure you could bookmark these on your web-browser, but you can't access those bookmarks on any computer or device. Using Evernote allows you to access your items in your account from ANY computer or mobile device because your account is stored in the cloud. 
• Check out these GradHacker posts featuring Evernote. The writers share some practical ways to use the program. 

Check it out. If you're interested in setting up your account but would like some guidance, shoot me an email!

"What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms"

A colleague of mine from the Nebraska Writing Project who teaches English at Ralston High School is currently working on editing and publishing a book--alongside his wife--to be released this April called What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms. Dan's an incredible teacher, and though I haven't met his wife, Marni, from what I know of their work on this book, they're quite the dynamic duo. I'm impressed with all they're doing in order to humanize students and teachers in a society that treats both more like machines. Not only did they commit to organizing, editing, and then publishing this book (with Rogue Faculty Press), but they're also organizing a series of readings across the country. The book's contributors span a wide geographical area stretching from Oregon to New York. I know they have a reading planned in Omaha, one in the works for the Ft. Collins area, and last I heard possibly one in Wisconsin. I don't know how they raise kids, stay married, teach, take classes, and work on a book together. They inspire me to be better, to teach with passion, and to work through the ugly days.

Dan and Marni created and maintained a blog to publicize the book where they feature snippets of essays featured in the book, a beautifully written preface, as well as reviews of the collection. You can also order a copy of the book from their blog. If you care at all about the state of education in our country, order a copy of What Teaching Means; you'll be encouraged by the stories.

Get more out of your students' internet searches.

We all know that when our students need an answer, they usually simply "google it". What am I saying... I do it all the time too. But don't discount your students' (or your) google searches as meaningless. A lot of great, meaningful research can be had on google.

Below are some great tips and tools for you and your students to BETTER your google searches and get more out of Google!. Print it out and post it in your room as a handy reference, or just remember that it's on your helpful PLN!

If you want to take it a step further, here's a lesson plan from the New York Times Learning Network devoted entirely to developing internet research skills, titled "Google It". It might be a good idea to check it out before you embark on a project with your students that involves some internet research.

Created by: HackCollege

Short and Sweet

The elementary students begin to type.
"W" (pause). "W" (pause) . "W" (pause). "Dot" (pause).
The teacher slowly spells out the long address, the odds of success dropping with each character she calls out.

Do you think Tweeters, limited to 140 characters, are the only ones who benefit from link shortening services? Anytime you need to pass along a link, short and sweet is the best way to go. To easily share a link, just shorten it up. Simply highlight the whole address, right-click, and copy. Next, paste it into a "shortening service"- there are hundreds out there.

I tend to use bitly.com (no www), simply because I can shorten AND customize if I sign up using my Twitter account; one click and I can transform "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_monasticism" into "bit.ly/egyptmonk." I used to use tinyurl.com- it's been around since 2002- but wanted to get rid of that extra character for Twitter posts. Other popular services include Google's goo.gl, Twitter's t.co, and for those long Youtube addresses, youtu.be.

Use these services and make sharing your links short and sweet.

Kony 2012: A lesson of justice

Back at the beginning of the semester, my English 9 students learned of the Invisible Children organization in a TED Talks video (another great resource for the classroom!) and of Joseph Kony. Last week a student sent me an email with this link and insisted I watch it. So I did. And then I showed it to my students....

If you listen to the news or have Facebook or Twitter, you've probably heard about Kony 2012. The video went viral shortly after it was posted on YouTube. It's extremely compelling and explains the movement in a way that a four year old can understand. My students watched it today and were engaged. We're studying social change and injustice/justice right now, so it fit in perfectly with our unit. But I also used it as a way to teach writing tips. The video is compelling for many reasons, but we talked today about how it's compelling because it's honest, it's current, and it includes what we call in room 116 'power lines.' These all happen to be marks of good writing, too!

I noticed today that the New York Times Learning Network also created a blog post about a few different ways to include this video in your lessons. It's probably not appropriate for elementary aged students (though....I don't see a problem with a parent showing this to his/her own elementary aged child), but it's definitely appropriate for upper middle school and high school students.

Check out the video and the NYTimes blog to inform yourself and your students!

Draw a Stickman

It's the Monday after the switch to Daylight Savings Time, and you may be in need of a pick-me-up. Go to Draw a Stickman and, well, draw a stick man in the white space and enjoy!

Sweet Search- a Search Engine for Students

Are you tired of having to cross your fingers each and every time you have your students do an internet search, worried they're only one click away from an inappropriate site that has somehow slipped through the filter?

Direct them to SweetSearch.com and relax.

SweetSearch is a search engine in which every single web site has been evaluated and approved by a real person. The site also features a helpful web research tutorial and a special sections for Biographies and Social Studies Searches.

So have your students try it out- see how sweet a successful search can be.