Just over a month ago, I read a great blog post about Evernote by my friend, Matthew Soeth. I’d highly recommend reading his entry as he highlights the variety of ways that he uses the program in his classroom, his leadership class, as well as in his personal life. I decided to give Evernote a try, and over a month later, I’m quite pleased.
The program allows me to organize a great deal of the material that I find online. A small elephant icon appears in my browser window and I can quickly mark any webpage that I see, adding it to any number of the notebooks that I have in the program, and even further distinguishing it by use of tags. I’ve used this many times from a professional standpoint to note a quick idea for a blog entry or speech idea, but I’ve also used it several times from a personal standpoint, marking a great airline or hotel deal or a great travel tip for an upcoming trip I’d like to take. Some ideas I quickly reuse, others I will revisit down the road as they pertain to bigger projects.
On the go I can use the iPhone app and quickly add a picture, a video, and/or a voiceover to things that I see. It’s the modern day micro recorder, allowing me to quickly capture my thoughts and revisit them later when I have time.
The best feature of the program, from a student leader perspective, is its cloud based nature. You can capture images and ideas on your home computer, your cell phone, and then access those same files on the computer in your leadership room. Since the sites and images are “captured” you can still have the ability to see some items that your overly protective school server might normally block out.
The program works even better the more that you consider your organization structures. Once I started to really think about necessary notebooks and tags, it became an incredible asset.
My advice:
1) Read Matt’s great blog entry. Pay close attention to points #7 & #8
2) Pick one project and give it a try.
I’m currently using the free version and it is working fine for me. If my use really increases, I might upgrade, but right now it’s working out.
Please share how it is working for you.
Special Note to Advisors & Educators: I recommend you subscribe to the CADA Leaders Blog that Matthew Soeth manages. He does regular posts geared specifically towards the classroom and the role of the advisor. Matt is really on the cutting edge of implementation of a lot of these ideas, and I really admire how willing he is to UTILIZE technology.