When planning lessons and thinking about topics I am going to teach, I always ensure I research to see what other teachers have done, to get new ideas or to clarify my thoughts and understandings. I’m also a Masters student so am constantly reading articles on the web and am now in the habit of ‘clipping’ these articles or things I may want to refer back to at a later date, into Evernote. I have never been a good ‘bookmarker’, I tried social bookmarking, it was a fad for a while but I gave up. I also have saved bookmarks to my local devices but the inability to access these across platforms annoys me quite a bit. I love the way I can save different websites and articles I find right into my Evernote account.

The Evernote Web Clipper allows you to save anything you see on the web quickly and easily straight into your Evernote account. You can clip a full page, single article or just the URL and save it to a designated Notebook and add tags. Your web clips then become searchable within your Evernote account. Doing this allows me to have all of my information at the tip of my fingers, right when I need it and across my multiple devices.

It gets better…Evernote Clearly might just be my favourite Evernote tool yet! Do you ever get frustrated at annoying adds that catch your eye when trying to read something? Or find it frustrating when the menu bars take up nearly half of the screen? Clearly makes blogs, webpages and articles clean, clear and easy to read. Now you can read these pages free from distraction and even change the theme and look of the page to suit you and your style. Once you have used Clearly, you can then capture the page to Evernote! Perfect! Clearly also allows you to highlight text, print a ‘clear’ version (but who prints these days anyway?) and maybe the best feature yet, especially after a long day at work…will even read the text to you with the text to speech feature!

Using these tools, my research, web browsing and bookmarking has clearly become more productive!

Make sure you have the Web Clipper and Clearly installed. Once installed they will appear in the top right hand corner of your web browser.

Once clipped to Evernote it will appear clear and with any highlights you made-

In what ways have you used the Evernote Web Clipper and Clearly? 

Have you checked out Pinterest yet?

Pinterest is an online pinboard that allows people to organise and share all of the wonderful things they find on the internet.

As a teacher I am using Pinterest to find new ideas, resources and to help with planning. I have Pinboards set up for different areas including Literacy, Numeracy, CAFE / Daily 5 and Class Ideas. As I am starting to get so many Pins I will have to reorganise and break down my boards into smaller topics.

Everytime I am planning to teach a new strategy, topic or idea I get on to Pinterest and do a quick search. More often than not I get a variety of Pins show up from other educators. From there I am able to ‘repin’ or ‘like’ the Pin. Think of it as a form of bookmarking or curating. I am a very visual person and love being able to see ideas and lessons in pictures rather than just reading the information.

You can also ‘Pin’ pictures and videos from the web using the ‘Pin It’ bookmarklet. So as you are browsing and planning and come across new ideas you can save it to your boards.

There is also an iPhone app which allows you to take pictures of things you have done and upload them to your Pinboards!

Pinterest users can follow other users so others’ Pins show up in your activity feed. You can also share your Pinboards so multiple users can Pin! What a great mode of collaboration!

For a step by step guide and everything you need to know to get started click here.

There are so many teachers on Pinterest, here are a few of my favourites to get you started!

From: Online Universities Blog