A Lesson From the Evolution of My Bookmarks

One of the questions that readers ask me on a fairly regular basis is, "how do you keep track of everything?" The answer to that has remained largely the same for the last decade. My process is that when I find something interesting I bookmark it, review it, and, if I like it, I write about it here on Free Technology for Teachers. Once I write about something I tend to remember it better than if I just looked at it and tested it for a little while. The one part of the process that has changed over the years is just where my bookmarks get saved.

Delicious (or Del.icio.us)
Delicious was the first online bookmarking tool that I used. It was the leader in the field of social bookmarking for quite a while. Unfortunately, it started to suffer from feature bloat which prompted me to move on to Google Notebook. In the years after I stopped using it Delicious was bought and sold a few times before ceasing to operate. Mashable has a good little history of the evolution of one of the original Web 2.0 darlings.

Google Notebook
Google Notebook offered a simple way to save bookmarks into my Google Account. I cannot remember all of the features of Google Notebook today, but I do recall at various times using the collaboration option and the option to take notes while saving each bookmark. Google stopped development of Google Notebook in 2009 and shuttered the service completely in 2011.

Evernote
When Google announced that end of development of Google Notebook I moved my bookmarks over to Evernote. Evernote was smart in making it easy to import Google Notebooks into Evernote. At the time Evernote didn't place any limitations on the number of devices you could use with a free account. It was also at this time that I played with using Diigo for my personal bookmarks but kept going back to Evernote because their mobile apps were better than Diigo's. That said, I did use Diigo with student groups because the collaboration component was easier for students to use.

Google Keep
When Evernote started to restrict their free plan to use on only a couple of devices at a time, I moved my bookmarking activity to Google Keep. Google Keep didn't have as many options for organization of notes as Evernote did, but for my purposes Google Keep did everything that I needed it to.

OneNote
In January of this year I decided that I needed to get to know Microsoft's products a bit better so I started using OneNote for bookmarking. I'm now doing almost all of my bookmarking in OneNote and occasionally using Google Keep to bookmark or record quick notes.

Everything Changes
The lesson to take away from the evolution of my bookmarks is that everything in tech changes. While each change seemed like a big hassle at the time, after a week or two I was over it. Those bookmarks that I had in Delicious more than a decade ago aren't worth anything to me today nor are those that I had in Evernote four years ago. So the next time that a favorite ed tech service changes or shuts down, go ahead and groan for a bit but remember that an alternative will probably present itself in short order.

Mac Users Can Now Quickly Move From Evernote to OneNote

If you're one of the many people considering leaving Evernote after the latest round of "updates" made its free plan almost worthless, Microsoft has something for you. OneNote is a free tool that works on every platform. Microsoft has offered an Evernote to OneNote transition tool for Windows users for a while. Late last week Microsoft introduced a similar tool for Mac users. Evernote to OneNote transition tool for Mac lets you quickly move all of your Evernote content to OneNote.

OneNote offers a free web clipper tool that works in Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. OneNote also lets you take notes online and offline, digitize printed material like business cards, and share your notes with other users.

If you're considering a switch to OneNote, take a look at some of Jeff Bradbury's tutorials on how to use it in your classroom.

Applications for Education
OneNote can be a great tool for students to use to organize research projects. The web clipper lets them save articles and other resources while conducting web searches. The notes features lets them create outlines for their projects and share those outlines with you for review.

Evernote's Free Plan Is Almost Worthless - Here Are Two Good Alternatives

At the end of June Evernote announced some significant changes to their subscription plans including the free service that they had offered for years. Last night I received a reminder email from Evernote prodding me to buy up to one of their premium plans. I deleted the email because I switched away from Evernote and started using Google Keep for all of my bookmarking and note-taking needs.

Google Keep can be used on any device on which I sign into my Google Account. As you can see in the video embedded below, you can add labels to your Google Keep notes. Those labels can also be applied to bookmarks. All Google Keep notes and bookmarks can be shared with others.


Microsoft's OneNote is another alternative to Evernote that you might consider. It works on Windows, iOS, Mac, and Android devices. I don't use it simply because I have been a Google Apps user for so long. Jeff Bradbury offers a bunch of resources that can help you learn how to use OneNote. Microsoft has published an official tutorial on how to move your information from Evernote to OneNote.

To clarify, Evernote's free plan still exists but you're now limited to using it on just two devices. For folks who use multiple computers, tablets, and phones throughout the course of a normal school week, Evernote's free plan will be inadequate.

Evernote Shrinks Free Plan - Here's What I'm Using Now

For a long time I have used Evernote as my primary tool for personal bookmarks. That's about to change because today Evernote announced that their free plan will soon only allow you to use Evernote on two devices. As I use three devices or more in the course of a typical week, the new Evernote free plan won't work for me. So instead of using Evernote I'm going to start using Google Keep for bookmarking.

Google Keep can be used on any device on which I sign into my Google Account. As you can see in the video embedded below, you can add labels to your Google Keep notes. Those labels can also be applied to bookmarks. All Google Keep notes and bookmarks can be shared with others.

Three Free Tools Students Can Use to Dictate Notes

Food speech recognition software can be very pricey, but it doesn't have to be. If you're looking for some free speech to text options for your students consider trying the following three options.

Mic Note is a free Chrome and Android app that allows you to create voice recordings, text notes, and image-based notes on one concise notebook page. The notes that you record with your voice can be time-stamped by clicking on your Mic Note note page while you're recording. You can also take notes without recording any audio. All notes support inclusion of images and links. The best part of Mic Note is that you can sync all of your notes to your Google Drive or Dropbox account. Watch the video below to see how you can create notes in Mic Note.



Google recently updated the voice command features in Google Documents. You can now use voice commands to do things like add and edit tables, select and highlight text, and format text. A complete list of voice commands can be found here.



Evernote users can make audio recordings on iOS and Android devices. Follow Evernote's directions available here to learn how to dictate a note on an iOS device.

How to Create Annotated Screenshots With Evernote Web Clipper

The Evernote Web Clipper is a handy tool for teachers and students. I use it every day to bookmark websites. I also use it for creating annotated screenshots. Students can use it to clear distractions from web pages that they are reading. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to do those three handy things with the Evernote Web Clipper.

How to Share Articles from Feedly on Your Android Device

Feedly is my preferred service for keeping up with my favorite blogs and websites. I alternate between checking Feedly on my laptop and checking it on my Android phone. Late last year I published videos about creating a Feedly account and using Feedly in your web browser. Over the weekend I received an email from a reader who wanted to see how I share links from Feedly on my Android phone. The screenshots below demonstrate that process.

Step 1: When I find an article that I want to share I tap the three little dots in the upper, right corner to open the first sharing menu. If you try to share from Evernote from this menu Feedly will prompt you to subscribe to Feedly Pro. If you open the "Android" option from this menu you will open more sharing options, including sharing to Evernote, that don't require a subscription.

Step 2: Select the service that want to share to. This is where I select Evernote to save links without having to buy the Feedly Pro service.

Two Ways to Bookmark Favorite Links from Twitter

One of the best things about Twitter is the wealth of links that teachers share with each other. It can be hard to keep track of all of the links that you might find while watching a hashtag like #edchat or #edtechchat. I tend to open a link then bookmark it with Evernote's web clipper. My process involves opening a link in a new window then bookmarking it. It's not the most efficient process, but it works for me. If you want a more efficient way to save links from Twitter, try the following two methods.

Packrati.us is a service that makes it easy for you to bookmark your favorite links that you share and that others share with you on Twitter. Packrati.us will bookmark any link that you share, any link in a Tweet that you favorite, or any link that is shared with you in an "@" reply. Packrati.us works with Delicious, Diigo, Instapaper, Pocket, Historius, and Pinboard (not to be confused with Pinterest). Once you've authorized Packrati.us to work with one of your bookmarking services, you're ready to start bookmarking while you Tweet. If you are a Four Square user, you can tell Packrati.us to ignore those links from your check-ins.

If This Then That has been featured here in the past. If This Then That is a service that helps you automate tasks between services. Thousands of people have created If This Then That recipes for automating tasks like saving links from your Tweets to your Evernote account. If you're a Diigo user, you might want to try this IFTTT recipe for saving Tweeted links to your Diigo account.

My Two Steps for Keeping Up With a Firehose of Information

One of the questions that I am almost always asked when I appear on podcasts or Google+ Hangouts is something along the lines of, "how do you keep keep up with everything?" You might think that I spend eight hours a day just reading Twitter, Google+, emails, and blog posts. I don't do that. In fact, only a small part of my day is spent on keeping up with the latest news. Over the years I've developed a simple system that allows me to efficiently keep up with new information.

Twitter: I utilize Twitter lists to keep up with new things. I have lists organized according to jobs (a list of teachers, a list of administrators, a list of tech coordinators) and location. The location factor is one that I only started to use this fall. I use the location-based lists to see what teachers are talking about in different parts of the country and the world.

I check in on Twitter a few times a day, but I don't have it installed on my phone. Scrolling through my lists and replying to @ Tweets a few times a day gives me plenty of time to keep up without becoming an all-consuming distraction from the rest of my work. If you check your Twitter lists during the commercial breaks of your favorite TV shows and once during lunch, you're spending enough time on Twitter. Add-in a following a Twitter chat once a week and you definitely have Twitter covered.

Feedly: I subscribe to roughly 300 blogs and websites. For years I used Google Reader to keep up with them. When Google shuttered Reader, I switched to Feedly and have now used it for the last two years. Feedly has two big appeals to me. First, the visual layout of vertical tiles on my tablet’s screen and vertically scrolling rows on my laptop’s screen just fit with how I process information. Second, from Feedly I can quickly share to Evernote for bookmarking and to Google+, Twitter, and a myriad of other social networks. (I should note that Feedly seems to act a little differently on my iPad. For that reason I tend to use my Android phone, Nexus 7 tablet, or my laptop when catching up on feeds).

I check Feedly in the morning before I do anything else online. I check it again around lunch time. I check it a third time in the evening while watching television. Occasionally, I will scroll through some feeds while in bed if I am having trouble falling asleep.

In the videos below I demonstrate how to get started with Feedly and how to use it in conjunction with Evernote.

Organize Your Favorite Finds With Feedly and Evernote

Yesterday I posted a video demonstration of how to create a Feedly account, find blogs, and organize them into categories. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how I use Feedly to read my favorite blogs, share my favorite posts, and bookmark my favorite posts. There are other ways to read and bookmark posts, but this is the method that works for me. Give it a try and you just might find that it will help you keep track of your favorite blog posts too.

The Tools On My Desktop and In My Browser

This week at the Bring It Together conference in Niagara Falls someone asked me which tools I regularly use in my work. That's a great question because while I review a lot (1,000+) of apps, sites, and browser extensions, there are some tools that I consider my core tools. Here are the tools that I use a regular basis.

Chrome web browser.
I use Chrome 99% of the time. It's fast and it syncs across all of my computers and mobile devices.

Jing
I use Jing for most of the annotated screenshots that you see on this blog. I've been using Jing since 2007. Jing is installed on my MacBook and on my Lenovo ThinkCentre at home.

Snagit for Chrome
Snagit for Chrome is the tool that I use when I need to create screenshots on my Chromebook.

Evernote
Evernote is installed on every device that I use on a regular basis. I mostly use it for bookmarking websites and occasionally to dictate notes on my Android phone.

Screencast-O-Matic
Screencast-O-Matic is installed on my MacBook (it is also available for Windows). I use it for creating the screencast videos that you see on this blog and on PracticalEdTech.com

Google Drive
Almost every document that I create is created in Google Drive. I install the Drive app on every computer and mobile device that I use. I have Drive set for offline access too.

Keynote
When I am designing a presentation that I will be delivering in-person, it gets designed on Keynote. As much as I love Google Slides for creating presentations to share on the web, it still lacks some of the design tools that I love about Keynote on my MacBook.

That's about it for desktop apps that are in my life these days. Everything else that I do on a regular basis is done in a web browser.

6 Uses for Evernote in the Classroom

This is a guest post from Greg Kulowiec at EdTechTeacher.org, an advertiser on this blog. 

Evernote is a helpful productivity tool when used effectively on iPad and can play a significant role in a 1:1 iPad classroom. Whether being used in a Math, English, Foreign Language or Art class, by combining the capacity to type, insert images, annotate, and record audio, students can integrate their iPad with Evernote in a number of unique ways. Below are six approaches to using Evernote in the classroom to improve organization, promote reflection, and help students capture their process and thinking.

Math Class:
Students can use a combination of dry erase boards and paper to complete work in class. Periodically (during or at the end of the class) students can snap pictures of their work to drop into their Evernote math notebook. As a follow up assignment, students can then type short explanations or reflections of the problem solving process that they used with those problems. Further, by integrating tagging within their notes, students could tag their notes with the chapter, concept, vocabulary or even level of understanding with a scheme such as, “mastered”, “developing”, or “needs work.”

Teachers could also integrate their iPad and Evernote into their daily process by snapping pictures of the chalk or dry erase board as well as student work. Additionally, any files used in class can be inserted into a notebook to create a daily log of the class. Teachers can then share the notebook with individual students or post a public link to the notebook on their website or blog.

English/History:
Students could use Evernote in their English or History class as a research journal, effectively replacing the traditional process of archiving research on notecards. An Evernote research notebook could be created and shared with the teacher at the beginning of the process. While researching, a new note for every source could be created to include the appropriate citation, pictures of excerpts from paper resources, screenshots from web resources, and a summary to explain how the content will be used in the research. Tagging can also play a helpful role in the process as students can tag their notes with a scheme such as: “introduction”, “thesis”, “evidence”, “topic 1, topic 2, topic 3” and “conclusion”.

Digital Portfolio:
Evernote is a single user tool, and the free-version, by default, sets all notes to private. Even sharing from the free version is “view-only.” However, when integrated with the Postach.io blogging platform, any Evernote notebook can become a public portfolio. By creating a Postach.io blog, a designated Evernote notebook becomes the blogging platform. When notes are ready to be published to the blog, tag them with “published,” and they will appear. Students can now include a combination of text, links, and images of their work that they would like to have presented in their public digital portfolio.

Foreign Language:
In a Foreign Language class, Evernote can act as an archiving tool for students to capture periodic audio recordings that demonstrate their ability to use the language. Whether students are given specific passages to read and record, or they are capturing a discussion with a classmate, the audio component can play a significant role in capturing and allowing the teacher to evaluate progress towards mastery of the language. The Evernote notebook being used for this process can be either shared directly with the teacher or via a public link.

Art Class:
Students could use Evernote to curate pictures of what they are both creating and examining into an Art notebook. Below each image that they are analyzing (theirs or from another artist), students can annotate and ink on top of the picture directly in Evernote to highlight specific characteristics, features, or sections of the piece. Then, below the picture, students can type notes that explain the image, capture their perspective, as well as defend or criticize the work. When combined with Postach.io, their Art notebook could even become a public blog.

Elementary teacher:
Elementary teachers could use Evernote to build a reading fluency log. By creating one notebook for their class, and a note for each student, teachers could then have students do quick recordings to periodically capture their reading fluency and document improvement over time. Typed notes can then be added below each audio recording for evaluation purposes. If desired, the individual student note can be shared with other team teachers or even the parents of the student.

Greg Kulowiec will be speaking at the upcoming EdTechTeacher Summit in Chicago, July 29-30. To learn more about using Evernote and iPads, space is still available in EdTechTeacher's August 4-6 iPad Classroom workshops in Austin and Los Angeles.

Mammoth - Evernote Meets Tumblr

Update, February 2022: this tool is no longer available.

Mammoth is a bookmarking tool that seems to offer the key aspects of Evernote mixed with Tumblr. At its core Mammoth allows you to bookmark websites and save files onto boards in your account. You can add notes to each of the links and files that you add to your boards. Mammoth boards can be private or public. Public boards are organized in a linear fashion similar to that found in default Tumblr themes.

Mammoth could be used as a project management tool. To use it to manage projects create a board and share it privately with your collaborators. Then use the board to share notes and assign tasks to each other.


Applications for Education
Mammoth could be a good tool for creating digital portfolios. Students could use Mammoth to showcase examples of their best work in a nice linear layout. Students can use Mammoth to share their portfolios publicly or share them only with you where you can give them feedback.

There is certainly not a lack of bookmarking and blogging tools on the Internet. The nice think about that is that we can try all of the options until we find one that suits our needs. If you haven't found the perfect tool for you, give Mammoth a try.

Postach.io Makes It Easy to Blog Through Your Evernote Account

Postach.io is a slick blogging tool that recently won Evernote's Devcup. Postach.io allows you to blog from your Evernote account.

To blog through Postach.io you authorize it to access Evernote on your behalf. Once authorization is granted Postach.io creates a notebook called "Postach.io" in your Evernote account. Then to write a blog post you simply write a note or send a note to the Postach.io notebook in your Evernote account. You can style your font, insert pictures, and insert HTML into your notes just like you can with any blogging service. When you apply the "published" tag to your note it will appear as a blog post on your Postach.io blog.


Applications for Education
If you and or your students are already using Evernote to take record notes and save bookmarks, Postach.io could be the perfect solution for your blogging needs. If you write your lesson outlines in Evernote, you could quickly turn them into blog posts for your students and their parents to read. Evernote supports audio notes so your students could possibly use Postach.io to publish short podcasts.

If you have the Evernote desktop app or any of the mobile apps you could even draft blog posts while you're offline and have them go live on Postach.io the next time that you connect to the web.

Dispatch - Combine and Share Resources from Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive

Wouldn't it be great if you could pull together and organize in one place your files and notes from Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and Box? With Dispatch you can do just that. In Dispatch you can also upload files from your computer and store them in your account. The primary purpose of Dispatch is to provide a place in which you can create a group of collaborators to share files, exchange notes, and plan projects.

Applications for Education
Dispatch could be a fantastic tool for teachers working in teams to share resources and plan lessons together. Not all members of the group have to use Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and Box. If one member uses Drive and another uses Evernote, both can contribute to the Dispatch group.

New PDF Annotation Options in Evernote Skitch

Skitch for Mac and iOS is an excellent app that I've used for creating annotated screenshots for quite a while. In fact, I used it to create the screenshots in A Short Guide to Using Google Drive on Your iPad. Recently, Skitch for Mac and iOS received some updates that make annotating PDFs easier and better than ever before.

Skitch now allows you to import and annotated single and multiple page PDFs. New stickers and call-outs have been added to Skitch as well. If you're an Evernote Premium account holder you'll have access to even more features including an annotations summary page.

Taking the Penultimate Notes

A couple of weeks ago Evernote released Penultimate as a free iPad app. Since then it has become my favorite app for taking notes and sketching out my thoughts.

Penultimate provides a place for you to hand-write notes on your iPad. The app allows you to create multiple notebooks with multiple pages in each. You can change the color and size of the pen strokes that are created when you write in your notebooks. Each page in your notebook can include pictures that you have stored on your iPad or pictures that you take through the Penultimate app. The app provides the option to change the look of the virtual paper on which you write. You can copy and paste content from one page to another and from one notebook to another. Learn more in the video below.


Applications for Education
I've found that using the app is a great way for me to record my ideas quickly without typing. This matters to me because I often find that when I type in a mind map format I lose some of the flow of my thoughts. In talking with students and other teachers over the years I've found that I'm not the only one who prefers to hand-write my notes and mind maps. In the screen capture below you can see one of the notes that I took while listening to a keynote from Marc Prensky.

Use Evernote and StudyBlue to Create Online Flashcards

This morning on iPad Apps for School I wrote a review of the StudyBlue iPad app. That app allows students to create and share flashcards on their iPads. StudyBlue can also be used in a web browser. If students use StudyBlue in a web browser they can create flashcards from the notes that they have stored in their Evernote accounts. Students can import individual notes or entire notebooks from their Evernote accounts. After the notes are imported students can copy and paste text, images, and links to use in their StudyBlue flashcards. Click here to try it today.

Applications for Education
If your students are using Evernote to record and organize notes during their classes, importing some of the notes into StudyBlue could be a convenient way to create review materials.

Is There an Organization App Better Than Evernote?

This morning I was interviewed by some high school students who are researching uses for iPads in high school education. Their school is considering buying iPads for all students for the next school year. They interviewed me as one of their "expert" interviews.

In the course of the interview this morning one of the students asked, "is there a better organization app than Evernote." My answer was, "no, but there be one that is better that I just haven't tried yet." For the last 30 minutes I've been going through my archives and although I like Wunderlist and Any.do for task management, I haven't come up with one that is better than Evernote for all around bookmarking, note-taking, and media storage. So I'm putting the question to you, is there an organization app that is better than Evernote for iPad?

In the interest of full disclosure last week I was so frustrated with Evernote not syncing correctly on my iPad that I did uninstall it for a day. But I found that I had come to rely on it so heavily that I had to re-install it. 

Use Evernote with Not-so-smart Phones

Evernote is a great tool for taking notes on the go with your Android or iPhone. But if you don't have a smartphone, what can you use? Evernote EV is a new SMS client for Evernote that was developed for people who want to take notes on their feature phones and save them into Evernote accounts. Using Evernote EV any feature phone that has text messaging capabilities can be used to send notes to your Evernote account. You can also use text messaging to search and retrieve notes that are stored in your Evernote account. Visit TxtEV.com to start using Evernote EV.


Applications for Education
Evernote EV could be a great tool for students who don't have smartphones to use to send short notes to themselves that they can access later on a computer or retrieve via text message. Of course, before you start having students use Evernote EV you should consider that depending upon the phone plans that they have students can incur text messaging charges on their phones by using Evernote EV.