It’s February. Your reading, writing and
math workshops are humming along like a well-oiled machine. You’re busy
conferring – gathering insights into your students’ needs, stretching their
thinking and setting goals like a pro. You have accumulated a wealth of
information but you find yourself wanting to up your game and get more out of
conferring. Evernote, a note-taking and organizational app, can help you better mine your notes, guide conferences
and plan instruction. Ever since I heard Donalyn Miller sing its praises in 2014 I have been using Evernote to make the most of my 1:1 time with students:
Organization
Evernote allows you to easily generate, organize and access notes for each
student. Depending on your personal preferences, you can
organize notes into notebooks by subject or individual students. Tagging notes
by skills or other keywords allows you to search for and find trends to create
small groups and plan further instruction.
Wielding binders or tool kits of materials when meeting with students around the room can get cumbersome. Why not build digital notebooks of anchor charts, learning progressions, teaching points, mentor texts, strategies, etc.?
Enhanced Notes
With Evernote you can attach voice recordings,
photos of student work, and other artifacts to your notes that create a more
complete picture of your learners.
Collaborating
By adding collaborators to your
notebooks, Resource,Title I and other support staff can view your notes and share their notes
with you on individual students. No photocopying or emailing is necessary.
Accessibility
Because Evernote is cross-platform, the ability to switch between a
computer and a mobile device to sync your notes makes the flexibility a plus. You are not tied to a device or an actual notebook when you want to reflect on student learning.
Final Thoughts
Evernote is a free app but
it does have a few limitations. You are allowed two mobile devices and there is a data
limit. I’ve gotten around the data constraints by uploading resources in the summer and
slower months as well as upgrading my plan for a month or two at $3.99 per month and then reverting back to the free version. The investment is well worth your money. I highly recommend Evernote if you want to organize and streamline the way you confer with students.
Maribeth Sellers
North Elementary
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