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Man, it’s hard to believe, but the start of school is staring at us in the face. My list of to-do’s stays relatively constant, but for some reason I have more this year than others. We have a major schedule change, which means we’ve had to rethink how we do the start to the day, lunch times, and ending of the day. We’ve had to put together a plan that will accommodate the new times but be flexible enough to change when problems arise. This is still in progress.

In addition to the new schedule, I have a few other items on my list for the rest of this week and next:

• Put together an in-service presentation for teachers. We’ll cover retention procedures with student interventions, playground rules/tracking procedures, and how we’re going to implement 40 Assets into our classrooms.
• Finish up some materials for my admin program and send in my certification materials.
• Get the rest of my office unpacked and ready to go for the school year.
• Figure out Outlook 2007, a big change from Groupwise that we’ve been using for the past several years. I like it, but I need to learn more about it to make it fit in with my way of being organized.
• How will Evernote fit in with all of this? My goal is 50% paperless this year.
• Sit down and discuss all of these (and more!) with the principal.

I’m always excited to start the school year. It’s the most important time of the school year, in my opinion, because how you start sets the tone for the next 36 weeks.

How’s the start of your year going?

Technorati Tags: School, education, k-12, Evernote, retention, scheduling

I haven’t kept up with my blogging lately because I’ve been enjoying this gorgeous Northeastern Oregon sunshine and moderate temperatures lately.  Specifically, I’ve been taking my 12-year-old son out to the driving range with me on a regular basis.  He played golf at his school last year and enjoyed it, so I thought this might be a great opportunity for us to have a mutual activity to enjoy.

I really haven’t played for several years, so it took some time to get some semblance of a swing back.  I approached my newfound activity like I do many other things in life:  Too much, too fast, too quick.  I’ve definitely been too impatient with all of this.  Hey, if driving a bucket of balls is fun, why not three in a row?  As a result, my 41-year-old joints have been protesting rather loudly.  I’ve come down with a case of what I originally thought was golf elbow, but I’ve found since then is actually more commonly referred to as tennis elbow.  Where as golf elbow (technically medial epicondylitis) is on the inside of the lead arm, tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis, pictured) is on the outside of the back elbow.   In my case, those tendons on the upper part of the right forearm, something I’ve had difficulties with in the past.  If I’m getting tennis elbow where I should be getting golf elbow, that probably speaks volumes about my poor swing.  It’s probably time for some tune-up lessons when I get healed up.

In any case, being at the driving range with my son has been a kick in the pants, and it’s something I expect we will continue to pursue even after school starts up again and we’re doing the parent-commute thing.  He’s got a few lessons in this summer and it’s been fun to watch him improve and enjoy the process.  He really is kicking my rear end out there.

Oh, I almost forgot.  I’ve been using Evernote to keep track of any golf tidbits I find on the web, and I’ve decided to open it up as a public folder for anybody who might want similar information.  You can take a look at it here. 

We’ve seen how Evernote can quickly and efficiently store and retrieve large amounts of information for you. It can even find text (typed or hand-written) within images.  As good as it is–and I’m highly recommending it, by the way–it’s not without it’s flaws.  Here are a few things I’d like to see improved:

• I’ve already mentioned a need to search for text within .pdf documents, and I sincerely hope that that will be a feature in an upcoming release.  I get a lot of .pdf files in my line of work, and I can see myself using it quite a bit.  As it is, Evernote simply holds on to the file for you, and allows you to open it via Acrobat that you already have on your computer.  It’s also possible I’m missing something here, so if any of you can set me straight, by all means comment away.
• Information display and layout is lacking, in my opinion.  It’s even impossible (according to their own message boards, anyway) to simply float an image to the left or right within a given note.  The blogger in me really misses this feature.  When you copy and paste from a web page, though, the software is able to retain tables that way.  You just can’t create it from scratch.  To be fair, though, Evernote is in the data storage and retrieval business, and they excel at that.  I just wouldn’t recommend the software for presentation purposes.

Beyond that, I don’t see much that will prevent me from being a serious user.  Any features I see as useless I simply hide or ignore.  Currently, I’m not making much use of the tags or the saved searches feature, but others may find them handy.  As late as a month ago, I would have also mentioned the relative inefficiency of the web version of Evernote.  They’ve incorporated drag-and-drop recently, though, improving it’s interface and usability in the process.  Nice job, guys. 

I had planned on my next Evernote post as a conclusion to this series.  Instead, I think I will keep creating posts as they continue to make changes and improvements to the software.  In my next post, we’ll look at account options and compare the free and premium features to see which one is right for you. 

All of this information storage capability is useless unless you can retrieve it quickly and efficiently.  As I have continued to build up the size of my database, I have found myself relying more and more on the search feature built in to Evernote.  A simple scan of the screen just won’t do the trick now.  Remember the cool part about this program being able to find text directly inside an image file?  This is where Evernote really shines. 

I scanned a recipe card and inserted it into Evernote.  After the software had a chance to index it, I could type in any word into the search bar and Evernote would highlight it.  Thus, “mushrooms” typed into the search bar would turn these results like this.  Get, say, a thousand images or notes all on a similar subject, and you can see how crucial this feature becomes.  And, it works equally well on the web as it does the desktop software.  This is a poorly scanned image, and Evernote didn’t pick up every single word.  Also, the software picks up hand-written text as well.

Although text and images are both searchable, I’ve had a tough time getting Evernote to recognize text within a .pdf file. One of my goals this upcoming school year is to make my office as paperless as possible, and I plan on using this software to accomplish that goal.  Hopefully, the techs at Evernote Central are planning this as a feature in an upcoming release.

Next time, we’ll continue this Evernote series with a wish-list of features and a run-down of things that I’d like to see improved. 

So far, we’ve been able to get an overview of Evernote and have taken a look at how to navigate the software via the dashboard. Now it’s time for the good stuff. Let’s examine all the many ways to add content and start building up your database.

You can add notes simply by clicking “Add note” and typing text directly into the application. This is probably the simplest and most cumbersome way, though. There are several other ways of adding content that distinguish Evernote from a simple word processor:

• Evernote Web Clipper: If you use Firefox or, less recommended, Internet Explorer 7, you can get this browser extension. Once it’s installed, simply go to a web page, select whatever you want to save (text or graphics), right-click and select “Add to Evernote”.
• Take a picture: One of the coolest features about this software is it’s ability to read text from a picture…whether it’s printed or handwritten. Ever been to a meeting where the presenter wrote everything out on a white board with a dry erase pen? Copying that down by hand is a real drag. Instead, simply take a picture and drag it into Evernote. Later, you can search for text within that image and Evernote will be able to find it and highlight it for you. Very slick, and in my opinion, one of the most technologically impressive pieces to this software.
• E-mail it: When you sign up for Evernote, you’re given an e-mail address to which you can send any content, and it will automatically be uploaded to Evernote.
• Handwrite it: Have a digital graphic tablet? Use the “Add note” feature as if you were going to type it, but click on the toggle button to use the Ink feature. You can use your mouse for this if you want to, but I can’t imagine why you would.
• Universal Clipper: Have something on your screen that you’d like to save, but for some reason can’t copy and paste it directly to Evernote? Go to Tools and click on “Install Universal Clipper.” An icon will appear in your Start tray.  Simply box in the area you want saved, click on the checkmark button when you’re done, and it’s done. 

I’m not really a PDA guy, but those of you with an iPhone or similar can combine some of these in just a few short steps.  For example, you can take a picture and e-mail it directly from your mobile device for instant clipping. 

I’m also probably missing a few other ways in here, so let me know if I’ve glossed over something.  Next time, we’ll take a look at searching and accessing your notes within Evernote. 

Last time, we looked at the basic functions of Evernote and discussed a general overview of this powerful software.  Today, it’s time to actually open up the software and take a look at the dashboard. 

First of all, you’ll need to sign up for an account at Evernote.com.    It’s fast, and the basic plan is free.  After that, download the software and install it to your computer.  Once you open it up, you’ll see a series of menus and commands:

Most of the menus don’t need a lot of explanation.  “View” lets you manipulate your layout and workspace, including an interesting “Time band” feature that graphically shows the dates when you posted items to Evernote.  You also have the option of expanding or collapsing individual notes.  “Tools” has a couple of features that I really find useful.  The first is “Launch Universal Clipper”, which allows you to take a screenshot of what you’d like to save, and then add it to Evernote.  We’ll look at this more when we discuss ways of adding content.  The second feature–and one I haven’t utilized yet–is “Install Evernote Portable.”  Apparently, you can also keep a version of this software on your USB stick, just like any other Portable App.  I’ll check that one out and get back to you.

Below the menu bar is a series of buttons you’ll need.  “Synchronize” links up the data on your computer to the database on the web.  “Email” lets you select all or part of a note and email it to somebody.  Conversely, Evernote has a feature that allows you to email information directly to the web itself.  I’ve tried it and it works as advertised.  “Tag” allows you to give a note a label, in addition to the folders that you set up.  For example, you might have several notes tagged as “technology”, but in different folders such as “work”, “home”, “school,” etc…  I don’t use this feature much, but I can see where it would come in handy when I get a large database filled up.  The last button in that row toggles your note list off and on, allowing you to take a quick glance at your note titles when you’re doing a search. 

That’s about it for the dashboard.  What I like is that it is reasonably intuitive, and allows me to hide features I don’t need all the time.  The web version is laid out a little differently, but you can find the basic functions you’ll need.  Just about any feature you need on your computer is also available on the web. 

Next time, we’ll take a look at the variety of ways to add notes to Evernote. 

Think about the software that you use day in and day out, the ones you absolutely couldn’t live without. If you’re like me, that list probably includes an e-mail client, an office productivity suite, browser, and a messenger service of some type. I might also throw Windows Live Writer in there for my purposes, and you might have some other apps you use daily in your professional life. Next, on the useful-but-not-100%-essential list, I have things like image editing/storage programs (I’m partial to GIMP and Picasa), music software (iTunes) as well as some other fun goodies (Google Earth and Dreamweaver on my computer).

Evernote is software that is quickly moving from my second list and making it’s way onto the first one. It’s job is a simple one, but it does it quite well: Collect tidbits and snippets of information from a variety of sources, and archive them for later. This is a niche that has proven to be essential for me since I first signed up for the service a couple of months ago. Evernote sweetens the deal by allowing for multiple installs on computers and handheld web devices and providing syncronization to their web service. Find something at work, clip it to Evernote, and it’s waiting for you at home when you power up. Or, if you’re away from your own computer, you can simply log into your account via any web browser and access it from there. What’s more, Evernote indexes all of your information so you can quickly search for it later on.

Evernote contains some other powerful features as well, including the ability to recognize writing in an image file. In the coming days and weeks, I’m going to be publishing a series of posts on this impressive application. We will take a look at each of it’s features and run it through some examples.

I rarely get excited about a software title, let alone devote a blog series about it. This is one of the rare exceptions. Just today, Evernote moved from the invitation-only stage and opened it up for the public. Give it a shot, and follow me while we explore this together.

Next up: We examine the dashboard and operating environment.

Technorati Tags: Evernote, education, technology