Evernote Web

Evernote Web - located here at: http://www.evernote.com/ - is a software application that is not designed specifically for teachers, or education in general. Nor is it an actual education tool to enhance learning with technology. However, Evernote could most certainly be useful for teachers in and out of the classroom. This software application lets you capture all your thoughts, lists, notes, assignments, and more across a variety of devices.

We all have a yellow legal pad or composition book where we constantly write down notes and reminders. Teachers will use this kind of scratch paper all the time to write down potential homework assignments and lecture ideas on the fly. Evernote Web is like scratch paper to the extreme - organized, fluid, fast, and secure.

 I like Evernote because it is versatile in scope and functionality. You can write any text, and save it for later viewing or editing. In addition, you can save any sort of picture (i.e. you can take a picture of text book you want to use, or a picture of a page in a workbook that your colleague has and you do not), or clip any website. You can save anything you think would be worthwhile remembering.

I think Evernote gains most of it usability and convenience from the fact that you can update a single account across multiple mobile devices (i.e. IPhone or Blackberry). In addition, if you do not have an IPhone or Blackberry, you can still update your Evernote account remotely by emailing your content (text, or pictures) to your own Evernote-provided email account. The content of these emails automatically propagates to the Evernote account. This is a great functionality, and I actually cannot believe more web-based applications do not provide it. Limiting remote updates to specific mobile devices would naturally exclude a large portion of the Internet-using population that does not have fancy mobile device.

Basically, Evernote will be as useful as the content on it. At the end of the day, it is really just a container to store and organize random information. It may be helpful if it offered suggestions based on your tags and categories for similar information on the web. Also, as said above, there are no direct relationship with classroom learning. But, there certainly could be.