Evernote and Schooling - how do you make it work?

[xixstar]

I saw in another thread another Evernote user with a nice description of how they use Evernote with their school day/planning/scheduling. To not derail that thread, I'd love to hear how others use Evernote with their schooling and planning or whatever.

 

I've been using Evernote for a few years to save information (love it!), but I don't really use it in a more organized or regular manner. I was thinking that it would be a great way to develop weekly plans and save summaries of what we've been doing as we begin our schooling adventure, instead of starting a blog which I've also considered doing. But since it's still mostly a information-holding tool for me, I'm still unsure how to get started.

 

How do you use it in your life and your schooling life?

 

Also in making notebooks, how specific are your notebooks? Right now, I just have a broad set for homeschooling and then subject notebooks but I'm starting to think that as I collect more information for older learners, this method might not work as well. Organizing digital information is not my strongest skill.

 

Bonus, if you have screenshots, this visual learner will heap lots of joy on you too. :)

[Candid]

I'd like to ask you to flesh out what it is you've been considering doing with a blog and what you are thinking about doing in Evernote. It would help me to answer you. I think you could use it to do what you describe, I use it a bunch, and plan things in it, but it helps to know what it is you are thinking.

 

On notebooks, I've followed what you might call Evernote's lead and I do not have a lot of notebooks. Not counting notebooks started by other applications, I have twelve notebooks. I only have one home school notebook. Instead I use tags to separate out subjects. The nice thing is that more than one tag can go on a notebook, so I can assign a note to more than one category. Similarly a tag in different notebooks may mean slightly different things.

[xixstar]

Hmm, I've been thinking about this question and stalking the other thread on OneNote that has also been helpful as well. So what I'm really looking for is:

 

- How to work planning into Evernote, especially planning that will need altered or changed as some things slow down or other things accelerate.

.... Would I make a note with master plans for each subject (ex. 'Reading: Kindergarten 2013' or even just 'First Language Lessons: Level 1') and timing doesn't matter and then a new note for weekly plans? Perhaps the weekly plans would be drawn up more as we go or just simple schedule outline to start. We're at the very basic stage so I

'm hoping to learn now and be more prepared when things get more complicated.

.... How to integrate ideas from other notes? Perhaps I'll just link to other notes, for example a Note copy on making relief maps. I just learned that linking to notes is possible, happy news.

.... How to integrate PDFs? Link to the file on the computer (surely this is possible) or go ahead and pull those files into Evernote -- have not worked with PDFs in everenote at all, so this is new for me.

 

- I would like to maintain a daily/weekly profile/portfolio of our work. If I was blogging, this would be done by posting new things during the week but maybe I could just stick to Evernote instead. So that's just a new Note each day/week I suppose.

 

I struggle a bit with feeling like everything is so disorganized in Evernote and since it feels like a brain dump, it feels messy to use - though yes I realize it's just all digital and my perception doesn't make much sense. I started sorting by notebooks because it's the only thing that felt like it would bring some order but I often get stuck on something that feels like it doesn't fit in any notebook or could go into two. I tag things as well but I don't always have consistent tags either, sometimes I change wording or forget that I wanted something to be under 'phonics' and 'reading instruction' or whatever. Mostly, I often feel lost in Evernote still. I store everything there only to never look at it again.

 

Thanks, that ended up longer than expected, but I did try to think about it a while.