Google Docs and Evernote - when and why I use each one

 

This past Friday I attended EdcampCT and had a great time learning, sharing, and meeting new people. I facilitated a discussion about Evernote and one of the questions I got was "why not just use Google Docs for notetaking?" I went on to explain all the features of Evernote but wanted to expand on it a bit.

Evernote is my way of organizing lesson plans, lesson resources, notes, web clippings, and more. I can share my notes with others, like colleagues or students, and I love how things are organized by notebooks and with tags. Evernote can also search handwriting and text in photos and easily clips and organizes things from the web.

Google Docs I use for writing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I can search and organize all of my files and share them too. I use Google's other apps for email, calendar, and more. I use a mix of Google Bookmarks and Evernote to bookmark websites depending on what I am going to use them for.

I see them as too completely different tools and when used together prove a powerful combination of resources for students and teachers alike. Evernote is better for note taking and organizing resources while Google Docs is for creating final products.

How do you use them? What other tools do you use for similar things?



Related:

Evernote for Education Resources

Google for Education Resources

Sikorsky STEM Challenge - real world engineering for high school students

I was an engineer for 10 years before deciding to become an educator and work to help other students become engineers and scientists. I was an Aerospace engineer and worked for companies like Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft.

Sikorsky Aircraft, a leader in helicopters around the world, is headquartered in Stratford, CT, where I live, and has a huge office and plant in Bridgeport, CT where I teach. Their helicopters, like the Blackhawk and S-76, can be seen flying overhead all the time. I loved running out side to watch them when I was a kid.

Sikorsky has always had a great relationship with the surrounding community and works with schools on many different projects. I'm very pleased to be part of the Sikorsky STEM Challenge, a program started last year, that has students working on a real world engineering project, from start to finish, including management, organization, team work, design, research, engineering calculations and more.

The program is being run in partnership with CT Innovations, Sikorsky and CT Corsair.

The challenge provides high schools students with the opportunity to apply the lessons of the classroom to the technical problems that are being faced in the workplace.

A team of Sikorsky Innovations engineers working with Connecticut Corsair have designed a challenge for a group of selected local high schools in Connecticut. The students and teachers/coaches will have an opportunity to meet the engineers who have designed the challenge and work closely with them in developing their possible solutions.

CT Corsair is working to bring an F4U-4 Corsair fighter back to flying condition. The Corsair is the official State of CT aircraft and was built here (and the engines were built in CT by Pratt & Whitney). It was used extensively in World War II and the Korean War. Students are working on real projects to make that happen. Last year, the three schools involved designed a new engine mount for the aircraft. This year's projects are still being set up. There are 14 schools participating this year. 

The program starts with kickoff event in September at a local airport where CT Corsair has it's facility. There is no cost to the schools at all and the program provides transportation to events, Sikorsky Engineers as mentors, materials and resources, such as SolidWorks CAD software.

The program has a resource, iHUB, that will be used for communications, posting of resources, posting student work, and more. It's similar to Edmodo in many ways, but bigger and used by corporations. 

I will be blogging about my experience, and my students' experiences, in this program. It's a great example of industry and education working together to support our students.


Related:

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Resources for Education

Sikorsky STEM Challenge

Evernote - my adventure this year using it with my students

Evernote is one of my favorite tools and resources. I use it for lesson plans, research, collecting resources, clipping things from the web, organizing materials and much more. Evernote and Google Apps get 90% of what I need to do done.

I just won a very cool contest Evernote hosted for educators. Along with 9 other teachers, I won a year of Evernote premium for me and all of my students, along with training and support to implement it with my class.

I have been using Evernote myself for years and always share it with my students, but this will be my first year really using it with them. I'm learning more about sharing notebooks and setting up groups and classes with Evernote. The first webinar from Evernote was great and we have a Yammer group  for support, as well as more training from Evernote throughout the year.

I'm really looking forward to learning more about how to use Evernote in my classrooms. I want to use it to eliminate paper, simply my students' lives, share resources, and create e-portfolio's for them.

When the year is up, the students will still have their Evernote accounts, at the free level, and all of their data and information. They will also have learned how to use this great tool as an educational resource. Since I teach mostly seniors, this will be a great resource for them in college.

I will be posting about my experience, things I've learned, ideas to implement this with your students, and more as the year goes by.

Thanks again to Evernote for this great opportunity!

Evernote also has another great contest for Educators: "Win an IdeaPaint and Evernote Classroom Makeover" where you win Premium Evernote accounts for you and your students and IdeaPaint, which turns any surface into a whiteboard.


Related:

Evernote Resources for Education

Evernote For Schools Site: Resource for Using Evernote in Education

Lots of Great Resources about Evernote in general and it's use in Education

Interesting idea - Chromebook + Nexus 7 instead of just an iPad

At EdcampCT this past week, I was chatting with Greg McVerry (@jgmac1106) about devices, 1-1 and BYOD and he made an interesting comment. Instead of a school purchasing an iPad and keyboard for all the students, what about a Chromebook and Nexus 7 for each student?

I like this idea for a lot of reasons. An iPad starts at $500 and then add the case for $50 and keyboard for around $50 and you are at $600 for one device. Then add in any apps that are not free. A Chromebook starts at $300 and the Nexus 7 starts at $200. Add in a case for the Nexus 7 at $20 and you get two devices for just over $500. That's a great deal.

Account management is very easy with the Chromebooks and Nexus 7 using Google accounts for each student. Google Apps for Education would also be a great way to utilize these devices and provide excellent resources for the students and faculty and staff.

I would have the Chromebooks stay at school. Less for students to carry, less risk of damage or theft. Their data and files are all online so they can still access them anywhere. The Nexus 7 tablets could go home with the students. They are small, light, easy to use, and can be used at home for assignments, research, communications, and more. By having the two devices, students have backup. If they forget the Nexus 7 at home, it doesn't matter because they have the Chromebook at school.

One of the big concerns I have for 1-1 programs is that if students have one device, what happens when they lose it, have it damaged or stolen, or forget it somewhere?

Google apps and these two devices also making it easy, and very inexpensive, to do all the things students need to do. There is minimal support needed for the Nexus 7 from school staff and practically no support needed for the Chromebooks.

I'm a big fan of this idea and will be sharing it with my district.

What do you think?


Related:

New Chromebooks and Chrome OS - great for education

Google for Education Resources

Android for Education Resources

On device apps/software vs. web apps - which is better for schools?

EdCampCT Reflections and Resources

EdcampCT 2012 was held this past Friday at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT. Hats off to the planning/hosting team for another great event. And, of course, hats off to the food service team for the awesome lunch and those incredible homemade potato chips!

For those who don't know, Edcamp is a great series of free, unconferences for educators. The Edcamp model is unique in that attendees set the agenda the morning of the conference and the sessions are not led by one person, but are rather a collaboration of both the facilitator and attendees. It is a great way to learn, share, and connect with other educators. They are held all over the world.

The first session I attended was "Twitter as a PLN". This was started by a teacher who wanted to know more about Twitter and it's use in education. Most of the participants were non-Twitter users or new to Twitter. Dan Callahan and I shared our experiences, tips, and ideas on how best to use Twitter as an educator and part of a PLN, as well as some great resources, like Cybraryman's (Jerry Blumengarten) site. Many of the teachers left the session ready to get going on Twitter and expand their PLN.

This year, I facilitated a discussion on Evernote and it's use in education. There were about 25 people in the room and we had a great discussion. Participants ranged from never heard of or used Evernote to some who were experts in it's use. We discussed Evernote and it's use by teachers, administrators and students in school, features and products, tips and ideas, and much more. It was a great session.

The conversations continued during lunch and I made a bunch of notes and connections while eating.

The next session was on layered curriculum, a way of differentiating for different levels of students. A good resource was www.help4teachers.com.

The last session I went to was on Learning Management Systems, specifically Schoology and Edmodo. The discussion was all about best practices, what people have done, how they implement them in their class and much more.

The day wrapped up with a raffle for some prizes and a smackdown, were participants came up and had 2 minutes to share a resource with the group. You can see a list of all of the resources shared during the smackdown here.

Some other resources that were talked about that I'm going to look into in more depth include Pixlr, We Video and Freely.

It was a great day, filled with fun, learning, discussions, connections, and meeting some members of my PLN in person finally. I highly recommend Edcamps!

Related:

Edcamp - teacher run, awesome, free educational conferences

Professional Development for Educators needs to change

Professional Development Sourcebook - free PD resources for teachers

11 steps to planning Professional Development

Discouraged by colleagues who won't go to PD without CEUs.

Jason T. Bedell - Professional Development 2.0

Label 59 - free web based presentations and demos

Label 59 is a free, web app that lets you annotate photos with interactive labels. It's easy to use and actually pretty fun.

It's easy to use. Add your photo, add the markers for your labels, add some features, add actions for each marker and then publish it.

When you are done and publish your work, you get a direct link to share with people. You can also download a Zip folder with all the related files in the premium plan.

This is a great resource for teachers to use to create learning materials and for students to use for projects. Students can use a photo of something they are learning about and then add interactive labels based on the content. A Physics student could use a photo of a roller coaster and then add labels explaining the physics of different parts and features of the ride.

Check it out: http://www.label59.com/

Microsoft Store visit - very impressed

I recently visited a brick-and-mortar Microsoft Store. My wife and I were in the Danbury, CT area and decided to head over to the Danbury Fair Mall and go to LL Bean and, of course, I had to check out a tech store, so we went to the new Microsoft Store.

I was impressed by the fact that it was large, bright and open. There were plenty of customers and store employees. The store employees all had t-shirts on with different things like "Ask me about Windows Phone" etc. on them. They were very polite and friendly and very knowledgeable. I asked a few questions and listened in to them helping other people.

The store had products arranged in different areas and topics. Windows Phones were all over the store, arranged by brand and carrier, as well as desktops, ultrabooks, high end laptops, home use laptops, lightweight laptops, desktops, tablets, peripherals and hardware, software, games, game consoles and more. There was a huge wall-sized Kinect set up also. People were just sitting and trying out products and there was no pressure to buy or leave.

The stores have an answer desk for help and run free and fee-based training and help sessions. There are special events, including community events, music, and more. They also have a free summer program for children.

I was very impressed with my visit and really like the ability to see so many different products and be able to try them out. The selection was the largest I've seen, beating out stores like Best Buy.

I really liked some of the new laptops and found myself liking Windows Phone (not that I'm switching from my Droid any time soon). It was easy to use and the user experience is different from iOS or Android.

What is also interesting is the location in the mall - across the isle and 3 spots down from the Apple store, which is smaller. Both were very busy.

With so much being done and bought online these days, it's nice to have a real world place to go and try out new products.


(Disclaimer: I was NOT paid or compensated for this. I was just impressed with my visit).