Cultivating Evernote

Posted: May 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Apps, Web tools | Tags: , | 1 Comment

I didn’t plan on getting back to Evernote so quickly, but I have found a worthy long-term project for it–my garden. I am slowly getting into gardening. Last year, I planted a few veggies with my daughter, and this year we are trying a few more. Meanwhile I am getting up and running on composting and other related topics.

To assist this, I have created an Evernote notebook about gardening in which to collect my findings. I hope to get a few things grown this year, but mostly I am learning. Part of the learning happens outside with my hands in the dirt, and part of it happens with my nose in a book or looking up info.

My goal is to find a good garden planner, a source of info about when to plant different veggies, resources for improving my soil and using containers for gardening. I hope to make next year’s garden much better, and part of that is the experimentation that happens this year. Let me know if you have good garden resources, digital or otherwise.

The Evernoting Story 3: If Disney Can, So Can I

Posted: May 4, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Apps, Web tools | Tags: | Leave a comment

Yes, I can drag this story out into a series of poorly crafted, straight to TV posts. But I won’t. This is probably my last one until I have more time under my belt with this app.

However, I did want to share what seems to be one of my biggest growing uses of Evernote so far. After installing the app on my iPhone, I found the voice memo feature and began recording memos about what blog posts I wanted to make. I know there are so many other apps that can do the same, but this allows me write comments on them and add photos, etc. For the time being, this will probably drive my use of Evernote with more uses building from here.

The Evernoting Story 2

Posted: May 3, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Apps, Web tools | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Just like all movies, good and bad, have the potential for a sequel, here is mine.

Today, I messed around with the Evernote iPad app that is somewhat limited. It can’t make new notebooks. However, I did play with the voice recording and typing at the same time. Wow, I could see some really great uses for this. I have decided that I will stay with Delicious for my bookmarks. I like the stacks, and I don’t really want to write copious amounts of notes or do voice annotations on web bookmarks. My task lists either will live in Wunderlist or in SpringPad. I think personal in Wunderlist and work ones in SpringPad where I will use the project management tools.

What does that leave? The first thing that comes to mind is that this is a great tool for digital portfolios! Being able to snap photos of work and put them in different notebooks, have students write or dictate reflections, and see it on any platform certainly lends itself to portfolios. I have already read several articles and talked to Ivan Nieves at Concord Academy about just this process.

What else? The web clipping tool would be great for research. Creating notebooks with the clips rather than bookmarks along with notes, photos, and other stuff could be a good use. I also see using Evernote as a good place to do the expansion at the beginning of a project when I am gathering lots of info. I can dump it in one place, sort through it, and then begin to focus. I don’t know if it will serve as well for that part; that is where I’d probably switch over to SpringPad. I’ll have to use it on my next big project to find out.

The Evernoting Story

Posted: May 2, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Apps, Web tools | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Unlike The Neverending Story, the web is not being destroyed by the Nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. The web is rapidly being expanded, and no flying, furry luckdragon could possibly fly all of the way across it. Tron, himself, would find it hard to navigate the ever expanding infoscape.

I have made attempts to filter this boiling sea of data and only direct pertinent info toward me. It is still far too much to see all of, so finding a way to dip in when I want to, to not miss the really important stuff, and to curate things I want to find again has been my major focus this year. My journey has taken me from Diigo, to Delicious, to Springpad, and now to Evernote. I am not yet sold on this being the solution for me.

So far I have created an account, installed the web clipper, watched a few videos, and made a few test notes. I can easily see many uses, but I really need to get my hands dirty by using it for a few weeks. I would love to hear how others are using Evernote or how they have decided not to and what they are using instead.

One Digital Flow to Rule Them All

Posted: April 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Apps, Web tools | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

It appears that I will attempt to move my digital flow to Evernote. I am hearing it from too many sources, now, that this is the way to go. I am not sure how much of my other pieces it will eat up. Certainly it will replace Springpad, but I have hardly started using that. It might replace my social bookmarks so recently moved to Delicious from Diigo. We’ll see. I am pretty sure I’ll keep GoodReads and probably IMDB Watchlist. Image handling will be the same, too.

This is a weekend project.