Evernote

Evernote is a free organizational tool. Evernote is very similar to a combination of Dropbox, plus your favorite bookmarking tool. Users create an account, which is identifiable only to them. This is a program that I will use as my classroom eventually goes 1:1. It will allow me to easily communicate with my students, share our documents and websites, and to go “paperless,” thus saving our district much-needed resources. Evernote stores information into notebooks and each specific notebook is then broken down into separate notes in a chain-like fashion.

- People can access Evernote from wherever they are, as long as they have Internet service. Some programs require that you can only access your information from the device on which you originally installed the program, not Evernote. - Evernote allows the user to access their Evernote account from any device and see their originally stored information. Whether you are on your laptop, desktop, cellphone, or tablet, you can access your information quickly and easily. Also, people can access their personal information across platforms (iOS vs. PC vs. Andriod). - It’s easy to search for your information via the search bar. Simply type in what you are looking for and every note that contains those words will appear. You can add “tags” to your work that will allow you to search your work even more precisely. - You can share a lot of information from other apps to Evernote. Apps such as Skitch, Penultimate, and Web Clipper allow information to be shared directly to your Evernote profile (usually through the share button on your device). - If you’re familiar with any type of word processing program, Evernote will be a piece of cake to you. The document editing settings in Evernote are very similar to ones that the user would find in Microsoft Word and Google Docs. You can easily change the font size, color, paragraph spacing… etc. - Your information is your information. Evernote does not share your information with third-party companies. This has become an issue with Google Docs.
 * Strengths: **
 * Through personal experience, I can proudly saythat I have seen some tremendous potential with Evernote. Its ability to be used and accessed anywhere is amazing. An added plus is that the majority of its uses are free. **

- You’re in a rush. You need to jot something down on a napkin. How will you ever get what is written on that napkin to your notes? Take a picture of it and export it to Evernote. Evernote also is able to read handwriting and to identify text. This will also make searching that much easier. Students have a tendency of losing their notes. You can make sure that your students will not lose their notes if they are able to take pictures of them or store them online.

- There is a premium version of Evernote that is available for $5.00 a month or $45.00 a year. The premium version allows you to: o Increase the size of uploads and of documents o Use your notebook offline o Allow for collaborative work o Password lock for Android and iOS users o Use the search bar which allows you to search outside of Evernote o Utilize faster picture recognition - In order to share things with your students, you must be connected to the Internet to synchronize your notebooks. - The amount of connectivity between classmates is minimal. When I use Facebook Groups for a classroom management tool, there is a lot of social connection between students. By using Evernote, the students wouldn’t be able to see what the other students are writing or how they are responding to open-ended types of questions. Thus, using a combination of both would be ideal for the situation that I want to create in my class. - It would take a bit of time to explain to the students how to properly use Evernote. If I want them to be successful at using the program, then I will need to put in the time to help them succeed. In my classroom, I give out review sheets that are based on1-2 slides of information. I hand those review sheets out, the students fill them out in complete sentence form, and then turn them back in to be graded. The same day that the students turn the review sheets in, they are then given a quiz based on that information. This process, for both student and teacher, is very slow and takes up a lot of time. Ideally, I would like to be able to share out assignments, like the review sheets mentioned above, via Evernote, give them feedback, and then return the assignment to them. Students would submit their information to my Evernote email, add in a “notebook” specific subject, and the homework assignment will be automatically placed into a specific folder so I don’t have to go out and find it. Besides using Evernote as a way to quickly give students assignments and feedback, Evernote can be used to share other types of assignments that my students enjoy doing. For example, I can share with my students a document that contains questions with answers yet unknown to them. Below each question I could attach a website where they can find the information. This student-centered lesson design where the student is in charge of the information they learn is one I've found to be quite successful. The teacher is the director or orchestrator of information being researched. The students then would follow a similar process to submit it to the teacher. Finally, I have thrown around the idea of “flipping” my classroom. Using Evernote would allow me to put every single chapter, lesson, and assessment online for the students to view and use. Instead of storing it on Facebook Group, which I do now, Evernote would store in a much more organized manner.
 * Weaknesses: **
 * All in all, the negatives, or weaknesses, of Evernote are very minimal. The program continues to grow and excel to meet the demands of their users. **
 * Examples of Use: **

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