Interested in Using Evernote?

I would like to follow up on our last post which highlights how one of our Administrators is using Evernote to collect  his observational data related to classroom walkthroughs.  For those of you that may be interested in the "how to", please read on... 

First off, you need to download Evernote onto your computer and devices.  Nice thing about this App is that it is Device Neutral.  It is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and various Mobile devices.  Go to the App store and download it now.

Once you have an Evernote account, the set up begins.  When using Evernote on your mobile device, you do not have access to all of the formatting features.  I discovered this through trial and error.  While providing assistance to Strathmillan with this process, I discovered that using the mobile device is not the way to set things up. 

I would recommend that when setting this up, use your computer.  All of the views and instructions in this post are reflective of a computer view.  Once you set things up from your computer, all of your files will be accessible on your mobile device for your real time collection of evidence. 

Step 1:  Create a New Notebook.  This will be the "master folder".  Name it: School Walkthroughs 2013-14.

Step 2:  Create a new notebook folder for each of your teachers/classrooms.

Step 3:  Open up the "look fors" criteria lists that were co-created with the Administrative team in 2012-13.  This can be found in our shared Google doc, here.

Step 4:  Click on your master notebook, created in step 1.

Step 5:  Click on add a note.  Do this 5 times so that you can set up an empty note for each of the 5 ELIVE categories within your master notebook.

Step 6:  Give each of your notes a title.  Use the word that describes the ELIVE category and tag it.

Step 7:  Go back to the Google Doc criteria list.  Starting with the Learning Environment, highlight the text and then right click to copy the bulleted list.

Step 8:  Go back to Evernote.   Click on the School Walkthroughs Notebook showing on the left hand side of your screen.  You should have 5 notes within that notebook.  The notes are empty, with only a title and some tags.  Click on the empty note that you titled - The Learning Environment.

Step 9:  Tap inside of the text box, right click and select paste.  The text from the criteria list should appear.

Step 10:  Highlight the text in the text box.  Click on the bulleted list icon to remove the bullets.

Step 11:  Move the cursor in front of each line of text (where the bullet used to be) and then click on the check box in the formatting ribbon.  This will  insert a check box in front of the line of text.  Repeat this step for each of the indicators in that same list.

Step 12:  Follow the same steps from 7-11 until you have filled in each of the 5 notes with the criteria list.  This process will load the Master Notebook with the criteria needed to copy into each of the individual teacher notebooks.  You now have criteria lists, formatted as checklists, ready to copy and paste multiple times into teacher notes.

Step 13:  In step 2 you created a notebook for each of your teachers/rooms.  Within each of your teacher notebooks, create  5 empty notes with titles matching the ELIVE categories. The same process as when creating the master notebook. 

Step 14:  Go back to your master folder, copy the text within by highlighting and right clicking on copy.

Step 15:  Now that you have copied a formatted checklist of criteria for one of the categories within the ELIVE framework you can open up each of your individual teacher notebooks and paste this list into each of your notes.  Once this has been completed for all five ELIVE categories, it will be accessible to you on your mobile device.  You will be able to collect, save and organize your observational data as you do your walks.  You will also be able to add other notes, capture images and videos as sources of evidence. 

This tool has amazing potential for collecting learning evidence from a teachers perspective.  It is a handy tool for collecting varied learning artifacts.  That will be a post for another day!