Evernote is so far the most underrated and under-utilized tool that I have learned about since being at High Point University. I was only introduced to it at the start of this Educational Technology course, but it is slowly changing the way I look at organization. I am still earned how to use Evernote and discovering all of its hidden utilities. Evernote has several capabilities, ranging from a word processor to a list maker.
When logging on to Evernote on the iPad for the first time, you’re prompted to make an account. The app and web tool offer a “Premium” version that can be purchased for increased capabilities, but that wasn’t necessary. There are two sections of categorization on Evernote. The first is Notebooks, and from that comes Notes. This way, notes can be more easily organized into categories. The toolbar on the left side of the app lists our all of the notes on the account, ordered by date of last edit. It also has an option to see the notes in terms of notebooks, which makes it less cluttered. Under the Create a Note sections, there are five options: Text, Camera, Photos, Reminder, and List.
All of the Camera options are available in the standard Evernote version except for the business card scanner, which recognizes and stores contact information from a photo of a business card. There are also similar Post-It Note and Documents options, which scan information to typed matter. The reminder note allows you to set up a time and write a task of which to be reminded. The list note gives check boxes as bullet points, which allow for the satisfaction of clicking the boxes upon completion. The text notes are where the word processor capabilities come in. Both on the computer and the iPhone/iPad, Evernote gives the user to type extensive documents and edit them.
When logging on to Evernote on the iPad for the first time, you’re prompted to make an account. The app and web tool offer a “Premium” version that can be purchased for increased capabilities, but that wasn’t necessary. There are two sections of categorization on Evernote. The first is Notebooks, and from that comes Notes. This way, notes can be more easily organized into categories. The toolbar on the left side of the app lists our all of the notes on the account, ordered by date of last edit. It also has an option to see the notes in terms of notebooks, which makes it less cluttered. Under the Create a Note sections, there are five options: Text, Camera, Photos, Reminder, and List.
All of the Camera options are available in the standard Evernote version except for the business card scanner, which recognizes and stores contact information from a photo of a business card. There are also similar Post-It Note and Documents options, which scan information to typed matter. The reminder note allows you to set up a time and write a task of which to be reminded. The list note gives check boxes as bullet points, which allow for the satisfaction of clicking the boxes upon completion. The text notes are where the word processor capabilities come in. Both on the computer and the iPhone/iPad, Evernote gives the user to type extensive documents and edit them.
My Experience
When I first downloaded Evernote, I didn’t do anything with it for a couple of weeks. I am notoriously organized. I have a color-coded day planner, and I have several running lists as well as a schedule of my day, planned to the minute. My first use of Evernote was for planning a meeting for my Civitan club, a service group that I run on campus. I used the Text component to create an editable agenda of the meeting I had to lead, and the List component to keep track of which members had paid their dues. At this point, I hadn’t yet figured out that I could categorize the notes into notebooks. The next experimental week of Evernote led to jumbled compiling of notes.
I continued using the app and the website simultaneously to keep track of miscellaneous contact information and other tidbits. I knew that there had to be a better tool to keep all of these things organized, which finally led me to discover the Notebooks button. I have three notebooks on my account now. They are titled “Civitan”, “Education”, and “To-Do’s and To-Remember’s”. The Civitan notebook consists of four notes: two agendas for meetings and their minutes, and two separate lists of keeping track of member activity. This keeps my actions as president consolidated and efficient. Evernote is like having an accordion file folder in the palm of my hand. With the document scanner I’m able to upload receipts and copies of advance requests that are put in through the finance office. Everything is in one place. There is also a “sharing” feature, similarly to on Dropbox and Google Docs. This allows other members of the Civitan board to view notes that pertain only to them. For example, my treasurer has access to the list of members who have paid dues, allowing us to be on the same page.
The “Education” notebook has two notes; one consists of assignments and their descriptions from both of my current education courses. This allows me to make sure that I’m meeting all of my requirements and, again, that I have everything I need in one place. The other note contains notes I’ve taken in my educational technology course along with tips and tricks that I’ve picked up in the multicultural education course. All of the education courses have so much to offer in terms of wisdom. I like to have somewhere to write it all down, so that I can look back in the future for help.
How Do the Most Productive People Use it?
The founder of Evernote, Phil Libin, describes Evernote as "a ubiquitous platform for lifelong productivity", a virtual memory, indexing all of a person's thoughts in one place in an organized manner. ("Evernote," 2011) The article on Inc.com, written by John Freedman, who has a career in evaluating human organization and orderliness. He gives several uses of Evernote that never occurred to me, and now allow me to realize the real purpose of the tool. Evernote is completely seamless, allowing users to remember things and write them down without having to stop what they're doing. For users who make the most of the app, everything in their life that ever occurred as interesting to them is documented in the form of notes. This way, through the 'search' tool, any key word, that can could be included or associated with the note can be used to trace it, and get the desired answer. This is the epitome of productivity, and brings sense to the extreme popularity of the tool among those who hold busy corporate jobs.
Thomas Houston, a writer for The Verge went into detail in his article about how he uses Evernote for deep reading, and as an index for things he's read online and in print as well as notes and ideas from work and life. He highlights the impressive feature that Evernote offers on Google Chrome, which clips any text that may be interesting or worth saving and exports it to your Evernote account. (Houston, 2011) From this, comes an advanced and personalized Google search in the future for users. When anything is searched on Google, using the browser attached to the Evernote account, both typical Google results will show up, but also, Google will resent any note that contains the same key words that were "googled", bringing back options to the searcher that may not have occurred to them. This, Houston believes, is Evernote's most defining and productive feature.
When I first downloaded Evernote, I didn’t do anything with it for a couple of weeks. I am notoriously organized. I have a color-coded day planner, and I have several running lists as well as a schedule of my day, planned to the minute. My first use of Evernote was for planning a meeting for my Civitan club, a service group that I run on campus. I used the Text component to create an editable agenda of the meeting I had to lead, and the List component to keep track of which members had paid their dues. At this point, I hadn’t yet figured out that I could categorize the notes into notebooks. The next experimental week of Evernote led to jumbled compiling of notes.
I continued using the app and the website simultaneously to keep track of miscellaneous contact information and other tidbits. I knew that there had to be a better tool to keep all of these things organized, which finally led me to discover the Notebooks button. I have three notebooks on my account now. They are titled “Civitan”, “Education”, and “To-Do’s and To-Remember’s”. The Civitan notebook consists of four notes: two agendas for meetings and their minutes, and two separate lists of keeping track of member activity. This keeps my actions as president consolidated and efficient. Evernote is like having an accordion file folder in the palm of my hand. With the document scanner I’m able to upload receipts and copies of advance requests that are put in through the finance office. Everything is in one place. There is also a “sharing” feature, similarly to on Dropbox and Google Docs. This allows other members of the Civitan board to view notes that pertain only to them. For example, my treasurer has access to the list of members who have paid dues, allowing us to be on the same page.
The “Education” notebook has two notes; one consists of assignments and their descriptions from both of my current education courses. This allows me to make sure that I’m meeting all of my requirements and, again, that I have everything I need in one place. The other note contains notes I’ve taken in my educational technology course along with tips and tricks that I’ve picked up in the multicultural education course. All of the education courses have so much to offer in terms of wisdom. I like to have somewhere to write it all down, so that I can look back in the future for help.
How Do the Most Productive People Use it?
Thomas Houston, a writer for The Verge went into detail in his article about how he uses Evernote for deep reading, and as an index for things he's read online and in print as well as notes and ideas from work and life. He highlights the impressive feature that Evernote offers on Google Chrome, which clips any text that may be interesting or worth saving and exports it to your Evernote account. (Houston, 2011) From this, comes an advanced and personalized Google search in the future for users. When anything is searched on Google, using the browser attached to the Evernote account, both typical Google results will show up, but also, Google will resent any note that contains the same key words that were "googled", bringing back options to the searcher that may not have occurred to them. This, Houston believes, is Evernote's most defining and productive feature.
How Can I Use It in the Classroom?
The options are numerous for using Evernote in my future classroom. Mostly, I think it’s a good teacher tool for keeping organized. Since I’ll hopefully be teaching middle grades or high school, it would be worth spending a day or two introducing the tool to classes. When students are more organized, it makes them more productive and easier to teach. In terms of assignments using the app, there are a couple of options. Students could have the choice of keeping their notes in Spanish for a week, and having their grammar graded. Also, similarly to the project I created for the QR Code assignment, students could choose a historical or famous Spanish-speaking figure. Then they could create an Evernote notebook in the character’s perspective. Although Evernote is an organizational tool, there is always an opportunity for creativity.
The reason Evernote hasn’t become my sole tool for virtual list keeping is because of the “Notes” app on the iPhone and iPad. Since I’ve had apple products, I have used the “Notes” application to keep track of my To-Do lists and daily schedule, among other things. Evernote is such a superior tool, and I’m slowly but surely making the switch.
To learn more about Evernote, visit the website!
References
Evernote: 2011 Company of the Year. (2011, December 11). Inc. Magazine. Retrieved
from http://www.inc.com/magazine
[Evernote graphic]. Retrieved October 28, 2014,
from https://evernote.com/evernote/guide/mac/
[Evernote Post-It graphic]. Retrieved October 28, 2014, from www.xconomy.com
Houston, T. (2012). The Verge at work: Backing up your brain. Retrieved from
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/10/3743350/verge-at-work-backing-up-your-brain-evernote
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