Getting the most out of Evernote

The 2012 Victorian PLN course has been progressing well, with participants next week beginning Unit 9 of the course. This unit looks at research and referencing with a particular focus on one of our favourite tools; Evernote.

Evernote

Many of our readers tell us that Evernote is the application that has changed the way they work. We’ve posted about it before, but it’s worthwhile touching base again as the developers are constantly adding new functions. The power of Evernote is that it provides a searchable catalogue of your notes which are synchronised across a variety of devices. You can also add voice recordings, handwritten notes and pictures, or clip entire web pages for later.

If you are looking to get started with Evernote feel free to visit the Victorian PLN blog and have a look at the Evernote page, which has some screencasts and tips to get you going.

For those of you who know the basics, a recent article by ReadWriteWeb outlines some of the ways you can make Evernote even more powerful. These tips include how to share notebooks, save web pages or email notes directly to your account. One particularly interesting tip for educators is the ability to disable web syncing on some notebooks so notes are not stored in the cloud. This may be useful if you have sensitive information (such as student data or parent contact details) that you would prefer to only store on your computer. This option is only available when you create a new notebook (see below).

 

For tips about student use you can read Buffy Hamilton’s great post about using Evernote in the classroom. Remember to share any tips you have in the comments below or on the Bright Ideas Facebook page.

 

Evernote

I’ve been using Evernote for a while now and so I am convinced that it is a terrific tool for library staff and students (in particular.) Anyone who wants to sync documents, websites and notes between their devices will find Evernote just so useful and user friendly. It’s kind of like cataloguing your entire computer’s contents and the ability to access them from all of your devices.

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What does it do? The Evernote website explains more:

1. Capture everything.

Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screenshot. Evernote will keep it all safe.

2. Organise it (or let us do it).

Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks.

3. Find anything fast.

Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote magically makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too.

Infinitely useful.

Put your thoughts, ideas, inspiration, and things to remember all in one place. Use Evernote for work, for play, and for everything that’s noteworthy.

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Evernote is available for:

  • Mac
  • PC
  • iPod touch
  • iPhone
  • iPad
  • Android
  • Blackberry
  • Windows mobile
  • Palm Pre/ Palm Pixi

This video explains more.

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Oh yes, and it’s free! There is a premium account, but you’d have to do an awful lot of web clipping and note saving to need it.

Zotero

A new way to research? Zotero is a revolutionary Mozilla Firefox  (an alternative web browser to Internet Explorer) extension that helps users ‘collect, manage and cite’ research sources.

With the results of a recent survey where 49% of Cambridge students admitted plagiarism, that sounds fantastic. How  does it work?

The Zotero website says that it:

  • ‘automatically captures citation of information from web pages
  • has a playlist like library that keeps a record of saved searches
  • saves records and notes in many languages
  • integrates with Microsoft Office, WordPress and other blogging software
  • has formatted citation export
  • stores web pages, PDFs, files, images, links and other attachments.’

Like Diigo, you can create ‘sticky note’ annotations that ‘stick’ onto the webpage you are using. The Zotero website explains how to create bibliographies; ‘For example, you can drag and drop references into any text field as either HTMLor plain text. You can also print bibliographies directly from Zotero or copy them to your clipboard. In addition, MS Word and OpenOffice plugins offer more precise control for integrating bibliographic information in your writing projects.’

Zotero provides a lot of information about how to use it as a research tool. There are screencasts that give demonstrations of how to use Zotero, as well as lots of links that explain just about everything you’ll need to know. Once downloaded, the Zotero icon lives in the bottom right-hand corner of the Firefox window. Just click on the Zotero icon when you want to use it. With the click of the mouse, Zotero saves the bibliographic information of a website to file.

Zotero in action

Zotero in action

Zotero can also be used with Netscape Navigator (no link as Netscape are no longer developing their product) and Flock web browsers as well as Firefox. Zotero 1.0 is the current version, but when version 2.0 is released, it will allows users to share collections, notes and documents, allowing better collaboration. Although Zotero is downloaded to a particular computer rather than generating a user login, it can be used on multiple computers. Version 2 should enable user logins for better portability.

Zotero really is an amazing tool for those who want to organise their research, searches or topics. It could be the new way to take notes and to teach students how to notetake online! Also a wonderful tool for anyone doing graduate or post graduate studies.