Google Keep

Sorry for the long blog break!   With Shelby students back to school since August 1, I have been busy helping to onboard multiple new digital platforms for our district.   Let's break the silence with a discussion of one of the newest members of the G Suite apps, Google Keep. 

Google Keep is a free tool optimized for making short notes, and like the rest of Google Drive, saves it to the cloud for easy access across devices.  At first, I didn't jump to use it -- I have been a fervent fan of Evernote back to my classroom teaching days (up to nearly 2000 notes as of this entry, if you must know!) and wasn't convinced in what ways Keep filled a needed niche.  But I've grown fond of it, not least because of how others have demonstrated its utility to me.  I've discussed Keep in several presentations over the past year, and it is one of the tools I'm most likely to hear about from attendees months later.   So with that in mind, I thought it time to give it an Edtech Elixir blog entry!

How does it work?  You can access your Keep three major ways: by opening a new browser tab and going directly to keep.google.com, inside of a Google Doc by going to Tools > Keep notepad (only for business or education accounts), and lastly, through its mobile app.  The mobile app has some unique features; more on that in a moment.

When looking at your full Keep inside a browser, you can see your notes as tiles that continue downward as the newest notes start at the top.  (You can also "pin" notes to keep them at the top.) Creating a new note can quickly happen by utilizing the bar at top.  Various options appear as you make the note or as you edit it later, including attaching pictures, making a simple drawing, or creating a checkbox "to do" list.

From the left side, you can quickly navigate to certain notes.  Examples include a specific label, just your reminders, or notes you have archived.  Archiving can be a good way of clearing the field of notes that are no longer useful or relevant, without actually "trashing" them.

Notes can have "Reminders" added.  What is intriguing is that you can choose to make it time based (which will tie into your Google Calendar and remind you accordingly), or you can make it place based.  With Google Keep as an app on your phone, that means you will be pinged once you get within so many feet of a place.  An example might be getting reminded to buy milk once you hit the parking lot of your grocery.

Notes can have collaborators. This allows one or more people to have real-time editing rights.  It's important to point out that currently there are no "view only" options for notes, so an editing partner can do their worst and there is no function like "version history" to easily revert to a previous incarnation.

As ways to organize your notes, you can change the color of the note itself, or add "Labels."  Colors can create a personal visual cue for certain types of notes.  Labels can create a system of tags that allow you to sort your notes into categories by utilizing the Keep navigation menu on the left.

At the bottom of the note, the "three dots" menu gives you several more options:

If you upload a picture, you can grab its text so you can edit and manipulate.  From playing around with this feature, it is remarkable how accurate it works!  (An example is below.)

Under the same three dot menu, you can also "Copy to Google Docs."  If you feel like the note is beginning to chafe under the restraints of Keep, this is an easy way to grow it with a quick export.  From a writing perspective, the brainstorm ideas or first paragraph prompt responses of a Keep note can become a full blown Doc when the time is right.

The Keep mobile app allows you to view, sort, and create notes much in the same way as the desktop version.  However, there are several features unique to the mobile version.  Drawing (either on a blank canvas, or annotating a picture) is a much easier interface on a phone or tablet.  Voice recording is only possible on the mobile app.  On the desktop, you can upload images, but the mobile app integrates the device's camera so you can take pictures.

Last but not least, there is a Google Keep Chrome extension.  This is especially useful if you want to quickly clip and save URLs of sites to your Keep.

Back in June, I was a facilitator for the #KyGoDigital Northern Kentucky Regional.  It made a little history as the first statewide virtual PD event.  In one of our breakout sessions, I discussed Google Keep during a Hangout on Air (37:00).  It can serve as an overview and live demo of the tool:

How could you use it?   For those that love Post-Its, Keep is a tool that naturally takes that same "quick note" idea and expands the concept digitally, allowing for better organization and making it nearly impossible to lose your thoughts.

My wife and I both have Android phones and personal Gmail accounts, so we have found Keep to be an easy way to make collaborative shopping lists.  One of us can add items as soon as we think of them, which the other will see in real time; as a person shops and checks off items, it's also easy to see their progress through the store!   For school, consider how you and your colleagues can also share similar lists of things to get or tasks to accomplish.

By creating an individual note for each student you mentor or need to confer with, then collaborating on that note with the student, you can create a great system for capturing conferring notes and seeing what the current goals are.  Collaboration allows for it to be a virtual dialogue.  In theory, this note could eventually be exported to a Google Doc at the end of the year as a longer record of the student's progress and growth.  What a wonderful way to track and monitor personalized learning!

If you want to capture learning (either in pictures, observation notes, and/or voice recordings), Google Keep on a mobile device could be a great way of doing so.  This doesn't have to only be done by teachers!  Students with their own phones or tablets could do it for themselves.   The students could then use the Keep artifacts as a starting point for portfolio collections and deeper reflections.

Daniel Edelen, a former teacher at Shelby's Clear Creek Elementary, was one of the first to show me the instructional possibilities of Google Keep.  The following Facebook Live video (12:00) was from our 2017 Edtech Share Fair, where Mr. Edelen briefly describes how he used Keep with his students. (An excerpt of the video also appears in the #KyGoDigital session above, but here is the full presentation in better quality.)


Downsides?  The formatting of text is very limited -- not only are you unable to change a font or text size, but you cannot even bolden or italicize.  Without some kind of organization structure (pinning, color coding, labels, archiving), it may become unwieldy as you scroll and scroll through your growing notes.  I would like to see a "view only" sharing option to protect from the potential editing complications of adding collaborators.  However, in fairness to the tool, the best use of Keep recognizes that it is optimized for quick content creation and easy integration across your Google Drive cloud access; more lengthy or complicated documents would be better suited for Google Docs.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I love Evernote.  With my many years of crafting Notebooks and Tags to organize my digital life, as well as its robust content formatting and options, I will not give Evernote up any time soon.  Still, it's worth pointing out that I pay for the Evernote Premium features that allows, among other things, a significant increase of  material uploading capacity.   On the other hand, Keep is free, very user friendly, just one click away from your Google Drive, and easy for collaboration with colleagues and students.  I highly recommend taking some time to try it out!

How are you using Keep?  Are you a fan of Evernote or another cloud-based notetaking program?  Share in the Comments below.

ACE Test

In the previous entry, I mentioned my ACE Test in passing.  But since I hadn't yet explained the ACE Test in more detail on my blog, I thought I would take today's entry to do so.

As a Technology Integration Coach, I peruse a good amount of edtech tools.  The struggle, however, is to find tools that are pragmatic enough for actual "in the field" teachers.  To me, there are three main areas of consideration:

• Is the tool device agnostic?  In other words, will it work on any device that has Internet access, regardless of the device's OS?  Or is it limited? (For example, an app only available on iPads.)
• How much does it cost?  Free is obviously best for schools and/or individual teachers.
• How easy is it to learn?  Time is precious for a classroom teacher, and a tool that requires a large investment of operational practice may be a concern.

Taking the first letter of a key word from each area -- Agnostic, Cost, Easy -- I came up with ACE.  By rating the tool on a scale of 1 to 4 in each area (4 being best), we can determine an overall pragmatic score.

I have used the word "pragmatic" twice so far in this entry, and the emphasis is important.  The ACE Test is only meant to judge how easy or burdensome it may be to incorporate that tool into a classroom.  It is NOT meant to assess how the tool meets specific learning objectives, which of course should be the primary consideration of any edtech tool; no standardized test could determine such a unique need.  (Only the teacher can judge if a tool would help meet the objective of her third lesson in Unit Two of her 7th grade math class.)  Also, if the teacher feels an edtech tool would have a unique and significant impact on learning, it may still be worth it despite a low ACE score.  I think of Shakespeare in Bits as an example. I loved integrating SIB when we read a Shakespeare text in my classroom; it allowed for personalized learning and self-directed pacing, tons of explanatory resources, and most students highly enjoyed it.   However, even though it met my learning objectives well, it would have scored low in the ACE test.  I needed to check out an iPad class cart for a few weeks to use SIB, and the app costs $14.99 per device. (It should be noted that SIB now has a Windows and Mac desktop solution, but the cost could still be considered prohibitive for some.)

Let's take Evernote as an ACE Test example.

• Is it device agnostic?  Yes! You can access Evernote from any browser with an Internet connection, as well as iOS, Android, and even Windows mobile apps.  It definitely earns a 4.
• How much does it cost?  Technically it's free, but if you are someone that plans to use it often, you will probably want a premium account that allows you 1 GB of uploads a month (versus 100 MB) and many other useful features, such as allowing Skitch to annotate PDFs.  Cost for premium is $45 annually***, which would rate it a 3.
• Is it easy to use?  Evernote's basic features -- making Notes or Notebooks, attaching files -- take little to no time to figure out, though you would benefit watching or reading a tutorial or two to understand other functions.  Let's rate it a 3.

Adding up the individual scores and dividing by 3 gets us a 3.33 overall score.  That puts Evernote as a 3 ACES: Strongly Recommended.  (If you scored the cost as "free" it would be even better, a "Highly Recommended" tool.)  This makes Evernote very pragmatic, but can it help your students meet their learning objectives?  If you have a lesson like this one, yes!  But again, the teacher should always view the objective first before determining what tools to integrate.

As an example on the other side of the scale, let's take a typical "clickers" system.

• Is it device agnostic?  It is the very opposite.  Clickers can only do one thing, and they only work inside of its own branded system (in other words, Brand X clickers won't work with Brand Y's system).  (1)
• How much does it cost?  Prices vary, but most run well over $120 for a class set. (1)
• Is it easy to use?  I tried to use clickers once in my classroom -- just once.  Even with the LMS's help, it still took most of the period to just register the devices, and there were still clickers that didn't work.  It was overly complicated and a pain to set up. (1)

Not only do we have a 1 ACE "Not Recommended" overall score, but common sense tells you that with any set of Internet-capable devices, there are plenty of free and much more powerful alternatives to clickers, such as Poll Everywhere, Socrative, and Kahoot.

I hope the ACE Test gives you a way of objectively quantifying the utility of edtech tools.   Teaching can be hard enough -- don't burden teachers with tools that are difficult or expensive if you can avoid it or find a better alternative.

***Editor's note 1/26/25:  As with all Edtech Elixirs entries, prices and features of tools change from the time a blog entry is published.  As of January 2025, an annual subscription to Evernote starts at $129.99 a year, which by making Cost now a 1 on the ACE Test, would today make an overall ACES score of 2.66 (still a Strongly Recommended, but barely!).

TUIT: Christina Mishio, SCHS

Christina Mishio has taught for three years as a social studies high school teacher.  She admits she's not afraid to take an edtech plunge, even if it's a bit of a scary tightrope walk.  As part of her Criminal Justice class, students have always done an annual group project involving taking notes and analyzing evidence of crime scenes. (In the past, this may have only consisted of finding packets in various places in the school with pertinent information inside.)  However, especially with the help of technology, she wanted to take it to the next level.  So Ms. Mishio reached out to me.  How could she integrate technology and do the project paperless?  If she created actual crime scenes (with police tape, "blood," footprints, etc.) how could students take, annotate, and share pictures?

Enter Evernote and Skitch, two great partners in crime.  (Heh.  Sorry, I can never resist a bad pun.) Both of these edtech tools are high on the list of my all-time faves.  Before we get to the plan I created for her class, a quick intro to each tool is in order.

Evernote has completely transformed my personal and professional life; it is absolutely my favorite organizational, planning, and archiving tool.  You can create Notes arranged in Notebooks, which are saved in the cloud and therefore accessible in real-time syncing across a multiplicity of devices, with desktop programs, smartphone/tablet apps, and even within a web browser.  Notes can consist of text, pictures, audio, and attachments like PDFs.   Notes and Notebooks can also be shared with others, which will be important later.   While Evernote is free, for $5 a month or $45 a year, a Premium account gives you several upgrades including going from a 100 MB monthly upload cap to 1 GB a month.

Skitch is definitely my go-to picture annotation tool.  It is a free app, as well as a free desktop program.  Upload a photo, and add arrows, stamps, text, freestyle pens, shapes, even a pixelation tool.  (It can also annotate PDFs, if you have a Premium Evernote account.)  Although Evernote owns Skitch, you can use either product independently.   However, for Ms. Mishio's project, the power of their partnership becomes evident.

First, Christina created her own Evernote account.  With 8 groups to set up, Ms. Mishio then created a unique gmail account for each group.  (This can pay off later if she wants to incorporate some Google Drive tools into her classroom.)  With each email, she created an Evernote account.  Inside of each Evernote account she created a "Crime Scenes Group __" Notebook.  Inside the Notebook, she attached her directions and set up a few Notes with tables so student analysis would be ready to be gathered in a consistent format. Before exiting each Evernote account, she made sure to Share this Notebook with her teacher account, so that in real-time she could view the student work as it was completed, and eventually assess their results.

Next, Ms. Mishio made sure each iPad had Evernote and Skitch apps installed, and went ahead and logged into each appropriate group's Evernote account. (Keeping track that iPad #1 is logged into Group #1's Evernote account is key here.)   And with that, they were ready for the Crime Scene project.

In short, the students were highly engaged, and the impact in their learning was evident in the amount and complexity of their various text and picture Notes.  It helped that there was almost a game-like feel to the project; students actually walked through the school to designated areas, taking and annotating pictures, discussing and analyzing evidence.  By using Evernote, Skitch, and technology, they felt like 21st century detectives.

An example of a student group's Crime Scene Notebook

One recommendation from Christina was to go ahead and trust the students with the user names and passwords to the Evernote accounts.  Not only did that cut down on her having to log students back in if they accidentally logged out, but several students (unprompted by the teacher!) went ahead and downloaded the Evernote app to their smartphones and logged into their group accounts.  In this way, instead of being limited to one device per group, the ability to capture and analyze information doubled or tripled.  This could also allow students who were absent for part of the week-long project to contribute from home or during after-school hours.

Of course, using Evernote and Skitch in such a way could be easily tweaked for a variety of different content areas and projects.  Indeed, in a 1:1 environment, it could completely transform the way student work is created, saved, archived, and accessed.

Congrats to Christina Mishio for taking her integrated edtech leap and getting a well deserved #ShelbyTUITshoutout!

TUIT: Makenzi Hunter, SSE

When I asked several Southside staff members for a SSE teacher that comes to mind when you think edtech, the name Makenzi Hunter (@makenzihunter) came up repeatedly.  That perfectly corresponds to her peers recognizing her as the 2013-2014 Southside Teacher of the Year.  I interviewed Makenzi about her use of edtech.

Welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please introduce yourself to our blog readers.  

My name is Makenzi Hunter and I teach visual art to K-5 students at Southside. I am beginning my 4th year of teaching. I first learned of integrating education and technology in graduate classes at UofL. I was introduced to Prezi as a graduate class assignment and continued my own exploration after that.

How have you used your document camera to create a blended learning environment in your classroom?

In my classroom, the document camera is essential in preparing for instruction. Most of our projects are divided into 3 or 4 class periods. I use the document camera to record myself creating the artwork required for each class period. I play the video while introducing the lesson and it remains on while students are working to serve as a continuous model.

I heard you have used Aurasma, which is an Augmented Reality (AR) iOS/Android app.  Tell us about it.

The SSE related arts team was looking for an engaging way to present one of the Seven Habits of Leader in Me to the staff. The music teacher, Erin Jump, read about the app Aurasma and brought it to the group. Each of us created an Aurasma profile, recorded a video discussing part of the habit and uploaded it. We asked the staff members to bring their device to the meeting and download the app. Staff members were then able to walk around the halls, point their device at the prepared document [which triggers the video to play], and learn about the habit at their own pace.

What other edtech tools are some of your favorites?

I use Socrative as an assessment tool, SafeShare.TV for showing videos from YouTube and Evernote as an organization tool.

How important is it for an art teacher to integrate technology?

I feel that being an art teacher requires the use of technology. My students will only learn so much from the limited knowledge and experiences I have to offer, so I feel that it is my obligation to expose them to far more than that. I want to offer students the opportunity to visit a museum online,  converse with an artist through Skype, leave feedback for one another on a digital platform and document their experience through the use of technology.

What tools have you heard about recently that you are wanting to try out for the first time?

I am interested in trying Flipgrid as a tool to gather student feedback and Nearpod as a way to have more interactive instruction.

Any advice you would like to share with other teachers wanting to integrate edtech?

My advice to teachers wanting to integrate technology would be to only try one thing at a time. Full integration lends itself to trial and error which can be frustrating. Choose one tool that blends well with your current style of teaching and give it a try.

I want to thank Ms. Hunter for graciously giving her time.  She definitely deserves a #ShelbyTUITshoutout!