Evernote

Since I discovered how to use Evernote, I have become an Evernote nerd. There are so many great functions that language teachers can use to facilitate students in developing their language skills, and more importantly their self-management (organization) skills, including note taking, managing learning materials and tasks, and reflection skills. For me, Evernote is a digital notebook that comes with all the bells and whistles to help you stay organized. You can upload all kinds of media that you want to remember to your Evernote, including scanned handwritten notes, documents, PDFs, photos, video, audio recordings, web clips and so on. It syncs with your phones, iPads and computers in both iOS and Android systems. Don’t you already see the benefit? Everything relevant can all be stored in one place and help us not to be scattered! 

There are several people who have shared how to use Evernote as a language tool on the internet. I am going to focus on the benefits of using Evernote with my DP Mandarin Language B students.  In order to be successful in the DP language B exams, one of the key factors is to be organized and review learning materials frequently. Through Evernote, students are able to: 

• take notes digitally, which resulting in increasing students’ recognition of Chinese characters as well as Pinyin skills through typing (particularly beneficial for Mandarin ab initio students) ; 
• use Text Editor function to prioritize and organize notes; 
• take a picture of the teacher/self’s handwritten notes or textbook pages and upload them to the Evernote; 
• tag notes for easy searching and keeping track of the notes and ideas (i.e. searching grammar structures, text types, vocabulary, reading strategies, etc.)
• Share notes with each other when being absent from the school; 
• insert relevant audio recordings, video clips, vocabulary mind maps, presentations and so on to enhance their understanding of the content;  
• access the notes anywhere, anytime on any device as long as there is an internet access (Only Premium version allows users to access notes offline on your phones and tablets. You can always access notes on your computer and sync notes when the Internet access is available.);  
• open and annotate PDF files in Preview or Adobe Reader and annotation will be automatically synced with your notes (You have to upload PDF files in your note first and then open them via Preview or Adobe Reader.); 
• use Web Clipper function to capture and annotate anything you see/read online, including text, links and image to facilitate in the research process; 
• promote engagement and learn autonomy in class; 
• Use it as a language learning portfolio and help students to document their progress of acquiring a second language. 
• last but not least, store their notes and never lose them before the exam! 

• Guide students to register an account and download Evernote desktop app. This will allow students to continue to use it and sync notes later when there is no internet access.
• Teach students how to take an advantage of the Text Editor and introduce the hash tag (#) function for effective note taking and searching.   
• Download Evernote Web Clipper Chrome extension or Firefox add-on, depending on what web browser you have. The Evernote Web Clipper allows students to save things they see and/or read on any website into their Evernote notebooks.  What’s so great about this is that students can also annotate what they see and/or read on the web and save them! 

Students can: 

• take notes and upload different types of files that they want to or need to remember in Evernote, such as text, scanned documents, PDFs, video and audio clips, photos, mind-maps, and share notes with the teacher. Teacher should check students’ notebooks from time to time to ensure students are taking notes effectively and check if there is any typo or misunderstanding of the content, particular if they are typing Chinese characters. 
• create different notebooks and tag them according to different topics. Three notebooks are required by me are Grammar, Text Types, and Written Assignment notebooks. 
• search and review what they have learned, but have forgot.  
• use the Web Clipper function to research Written Assignment Topics.    
• Prepare and save their formative and summative assignment tasks (presentations, photos, essays, video clips of role-plays, audio recording of interviews…) in Evernote for reflection and improvement. It can be used as a language portfolio. 
• review their notes any time, any where on any device! 

11 Note-Taking Tips For The Digital Classroom

There are plenty of Evernote tutorial videos on Youtube. If you are not sure how to use it, I am sure you can get your questions answered through these tutorial videos. 

My successful story with Evernote.  http://blog.evernote.com/sea/2014/08/13/evernote-world-teaching-chinese-evernote/