I was reading an article on Edudemic.com, which is a website that researches and posts information regarding technology in education. The article was about going paperless in the classroom, more precisely the article was titled, "Ultimate Guide to the Paperless Classroom." I found the information to be quite interesting, particularly because I have had a goal to be more contentious about the amount of paper I use in my own classroom. Especially because I come from a school in which students all bring their laptops to class everyday, and we have adopted a new and pretty efficient learning management system (LMS), I figured I should face little opposition. I oversimplified the challenge.
I didn't take into account the challenges of organizing the mountain of digital work that I would acquire. I mean, it's quite easy to collect a stack of papers, and keep them in a file labeled with the appropriate label. I put a paperclip to keep like files together, and I keep them on my desk to grade... eventually. But organizing the mass of emails and GoogleDocs that comes with going paperless is a nightmare. I was drowning in emails, and my GoogleDocs, an application that I use both professionally and personally to keep organized became inundated with random documents labeled the strangest things as students randomly shared their work with me.
While the positives were quite strong: collaboration in and out of class, peer editing and multi-tasked group work is so easy online; less excuses from students, I haven't heard, "I lost my paper" in I don't know how long; instant creation of documents, I don't have to worry about making copies before class ,or running out of copies at the worst possible moment when everything we need for class is online, I found myself making more copies. I found myself asking students to print out their homework more frequently. I found myself straying from my goal.
I didn't take into account the challenges of organizing the mountain of digital work that I would acquire. I mean, it's quite easy to collect a stack of papers, and keep them in a file labeled with the appropriate label. I put a paperclip to keep like files together, and I keep them on my desk to grade... eventually. But organizing the mass of emails and GoogleDocs that comes with going paperless is a nightmare. I was drowning in emails, and my GoogleDocs, an application that I use both professionally and personally to keep organized became inundated with random documents labeled the strangest things as students randomly shared their work with me.
While the positives were quite strong: collaboration in and out of class, peer editing and multi-tasked group work is so easy online; less excuses from students, I haven't heard, "I lost my paper" in I don't know how long; instant creation of documents, I don't have to worry about making copies before class ,or running out of copies at the worst possible moment when everything we need for class is online, I found myself making more copies. I found myself asking students to print out their homework more frequently. I found myself straying from my goal.
The first tutorial, by David A. Cox, was really well put together, and very good for learning the basics of Evernote. It helped me learn a few new features that I didn't know exsisted, such as the ability to create stacks, or the awesome editing features that are available for notebooks. These are great things to distribute information to students AND to keep organized. But, as awesome as the tutorial was, it didn't really teach me how to use it in the classroom. So, I found myself looking for more resources.
I found a great resource, by accident, when I came across "Going Paperless with Evernote". Going paperless is the goal, and Evernote is the tool. I figured this had to be the best resource for me. And, I think it was. Seeing Evernote used in the exact way in which I plan to use it in my classroom was awesome! While the production value and organization was a little distracting, I definitely found the content of this online session much more applicable to me and my classroom.
I found a great resource, by accident, when I came across "Going Paperless with Evernote". Going paperless is the goal, and Evernote is the tool. I figured this had to be the best resource for me. And, I think it was. Seeing Evernote used in the exact way in which I plan to use it in my classroom was awesome! While the production value and organization was a little distracting, I definitely found the content of this online session much more applicable to me and my classroom.