This week, I made a film that allowed me to answer a question that a teacher asked me a year ago.  She asked if I could suggest any apps that would help disorganized students find their notes, remember when homework is due and in general, just be more organized.

One of my colleagues read a blog post by Beth Holland called The 4 S’s of Note Taking With Technology.  In this blog, Holland shows that technology can support students with specific learning needs and styles with such features as text-to-speech and recording audio. That’s the first S, support.  Save is the second S. Using cloud-based apps and services, students can save notes, homework, reports, and never lose them.

Notes can be organized into notebooks or folders by subject, which brings me to the Third S, search.  You can star and tag files, whether it’s on a cloud or on your computer. I was vaguely aware of this, but didn’t see the power of taking the time to star or tag files. Once a colleague showed me how easy it is to do, I made the effort to tag files that I thought I would look for. Almost immediately, I noticed that finding documents on my computer was much faster.  I’m getting too old to remember which file folder I put a document! For example, I tag copies of my receipts and bills, so the other day, when I was asked to send a second copy of a receipt, it didn’t involve a major search of my hard drive. I’ve found that if I look at my list of tags and then click on the appropriate tag, finding my files is faster.

The last S is share.  With collaboration being a major component of much that we expect students to do, most note taking apps allow for collaboration the way that Google Docs does.  For certain projects, I’ve shared Evernote notebooks, and with the new chat function, I can ask questions and make comments as needed.

When I made the video, I became concerned about laws promoting child privacy that would prevent a child under 13 from  being allowed to register for apps such as Evernote and Google Docs.Educators should always verify the legal terms regarding signing any student up with a service and where possible, get legal advice from their Board. Beth Holland referred me to Evernote’s Terms of Service :

“If you are a school, district or teacher in the United States and want your students who are under the age of 13 to create Evernote accounts, including in conjunction with the establishment of an Evernote Business account for the schools or a group of students at the school, you agree that you are responsible for complying with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and, to the extent applicable, The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). This means you must notify those students’ parents/guardians of the personally identifiable information Evernote will collect and obtain parental/guardian consent before your students establish accounts or use the Service. When obtaining such consent, you must provide parents/guardians with a copy of our Privacy Policy. You must keep all consents on file and provide them to us if we request them. For more information on complying with COPPA, see the Federal Trade Commission’s website at http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.shtm. If you are located outside of the United States, we will rely upon you to obtain any required consent or approval from the parent or guardian of any student covered by similar laws and, as a condition to your and your students’ use of the Service, you agree that you will be responsible for complying with such laws.”

Note taking can be made much easier for some students when we guide them to the right technology that will best meet their needs.  The same thing goes for educators – the right technology can make our lives so much easier.