by Jennifer DeMartino
At Hazeldale, we are on the front lines of the digital revolution in schools. Because of the tools we already have, and with the addition of our tech grant, we will see more opportunities for innovation because we will have the tools to try new things. And I say, if you can think of it, TRY IT! Push all the buttons. Unlike in the past, you cannot break your technology tools. (Unless you drop them!) So explore and have fun. If the tools we are given do not make our lives easier (and cooler:), then we do not need them. But to find out if they can help us, we have to use them. To that end, I invite you to get out of your comfort zone and try a few new things this year. That is what this blog is all about.
So without further ado, my first new thing...Evernote. I vowed to make the digital leap this year. I want to take some things that I used to do with paper and pencil and try them out in a digital format. Specifically, I wanted to make my iPad work harder for me. So I decided to start with the most valuable part of my teaching: my professional journal. The most important thing I do as a teacher is to keep a journal. In the past it looked like this...
So without further ado, my first new thing...Evernote. I vowed to make the digital leap this year. I want to take some things that I used to do with paper and pencil and try them out in a digital format. Specifically, I wanted to make my iPad work harder for me. So I decided to start with the most valuable part of my teaching: my professional journal. The most important thing I do as a teacher is to keep a journal. In the past it looked like this...
Now it looks like this...
You can see that the app lists all of my entries down the left hand side. It keeps the table of contents for me so that I don't have to go back and write it the entries in the front of the journal like I did in the paper/pencil journal. If you pay for the premium account -$5 a month or $45 a year - your notes become keyword searchable so you will always be able to find the note you were looking for without flipping through and skimming page after page like I used to do in my old journal. On the right hand side is a sample of an entry made while I was at a math training. I was able to take pictures of things I didn't want to forget and I didn't even have to write them down. Cool right? I use the free version. Another vow of mine is to resist the temptation to pay. I'm trying the free first. Always. A limitation of the free version is storage space. I will keep you posted as to when I run out.
On Evernote, you can take notes, attach photos and live links to urls right in your document. You can even record meetings or lectures and keep the audio files in the note. You may have noticed in my old journal's table of contents that I had many, many to-do lists. Evernote allows you to create these lists and check them off as they are completed. I have only started to play around with this, but I am learning a lot every day. And guess how I learn best? By pushing all the buttons! So download Evernote to your laptop or iPad and start your year off right. Or better yet, try a different journaling app and let us know how that works!
Keep pushing buttons!
Jen
On Evernote, you can take notes, attach photos and live links to urls right in your document. You can even record meetings or lectures and keep the audio files in the note. You may have noticed in my old journal's table of contents that I had many, many to-do lists. Evernote allows you to create these lists and check them off as they are completed. I have only started to play around with this, but I am learning a lot every day. And guess how I learn best? By pushing all the buttons! So download Evernote to your laptop or iPad and start your year off right. Or better yet, try a different journaling app and let us know how that works!
Keep pushing buttons!
Jen