Note-taking Applications

InClass is a free iPhone and iPad app that could be a very useful tool for students carrying those devices. InClass provides students with tools for taking text, audio, and video notes. Students can also use the app to take pictures of hand-outs, slides, and other valuable information that they see in class. Taking notes is not all that InClass can be used for. It can also be used as a task management tool to help students keep track of their schedules and due dates. To share notes, images, videos, and schedules students can connect InClass to their Facebook accounts.

Color Note is a simple note-taking app that I've been using on all of my Android phones for the last year (yes, it's been a rough year for phones in my life). Color Note offers a sticky note environment, a calendar option, to do list options, and the option to share your notes via email and sms. Color Note does offer an option to password protect your notes so that even if someone takes your phone, your notes are still protected.

Save Meeting is a meeting recording app for iOS and Android devices. The app allows you to record the audio of your meetings, transcribe the audio, and share the recordings and transcriptions with others. The transcription options that I tried were somewhat limited (30 seconds of automatic transcription and 5 minutes of manual transcription) but should be sufficient for recording quick notes during a meeting. Save Meeting uses a freemium pricing model. At the free level you can save up to 1,000 minutes of audio.

Notes.io offers a simple platform for taking and sharing notes. To useNotes.io just go to the site and start typing your notes. When you want to share your notes just click "short" to have a shortened url created for sharing on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever else you like. It really couldn't be any simpler to use.

No list of note-taking tools would be complete without mentioning Evernote. Evernote can be used by students to take notes on the web, on their desktops, on their Android devices, and on their iOS devices. Their notes can be automatically synchronized across devices whenever they connect to the web. Notes can include text, images, links, and more. Click here to read about how I am using Evernote.

mySchoolNotebook is a service for taking, saving, and sharing notes online and offline. The basic purpose of mySchoolNotebook is to provide a place that students can take and organize notes from all of their courses. Students can create notebooks for each of their courses to which they add text and image notes. To usemySchoolNotebook you do have to have a Facebook account. By signing into mySchoolNotebook with a Facebook account students are able to connect with and share notebooks with their friends taking the same courses that they are taking. mySchoolNotebook is available to use on the web and as an iPhone/iPad app. Students can export their notebooks as PDFs if they need to have a paper copy of their notes.

If your students are already in the habit of using Google Documents to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets it just makes sense that they take notes in Google Docs too. Teach your students to create folders for each of their courses to help them keep their notes organized. While the mobile versions of Google Docs aren't perfect, they can be used for some basic viewing and editing.

On-line Sticky Note Services for Students and Teachers

Since I started this post by mentioning Wallwisher, it just makes sense to start out with an explanation of what it is. Wallwisher is a virtual corkboard to which students can post multimedia notes. Notes can have up to 160 characters of text, video links, and image links. To get started simply go to Wallwisher.com and click "build a wall." Then title your wall, choose a URL for your wall, enter your name and email, and start adding sticky notes to the wall. You can choose to make your wall private or public. If you choose the public option anyone can quickly add sticky notes to your wall. If you want to approve additions to the wall before they appear, that's an option too. Stixy is an organization and collaboration tool that I first wrote about four years ago. Stixy, as the name implies, allows you to write notes and stick them to a clipboard. Stixy allows you to share your notes with others and have them respond to your notes. The Stixy clipboard also gives you options for sticking and sharing documents, sticking and sharing photographs, and creating and sharing to-do lists.

Spaaze is a free online sticky note service that offers some handy functions for teachers and students. Spaaze allows you to write notes, edit notes and reorder your notes. Your notes can be simple text notes or you can create notes that contain videos, images, or links. Use the Spaaze browser bookmarklet to add a note to your collection anytime you come across an interesting find on the web. Spaaze is iPad friendly. The video below gives a good overview of what can be done with Spaaze.

Lino It is a free service that allows you to create a canvas of online multimedia sticky notes. In addition to basic text, the sticky notes you place on your canvas can contain videos, images, and file attachments. Unlike some similar sticky note services, Lino It allows you to alter the size and color of your fonts. You can use Lino It's built-in calendar tool to set due dates on your sticky notes. To use Lino It, you have to register for an account. Once you've registered you can create as many sticky note canvases as you like. You can make your canvases and notes public or private. If you choose to make a canvas public other users can add sticky notes to it and read all of the notes on it.

Desktop sticky note applications are very handy for creating reminders for yourself and recording quick thoughts. But if you frequently work from more than one computer, a desktop sticky note application might not suit your needs. That's where a service like Noterr can be helpful. Noterr is a free web-based sticky note service. Noterr provides a blank canvas for posting sticky notes to yourself. Individual notes, but not an entire canvas, can be shared with others via the link provided by Noterr. Scrumblr is a site that provides an online space to create and share sticky notes with a group. Scrumblr can be used by anyone to quickly create an online space for sharing stickies. To get started just enter a name for your space. The name you choose will be a part of the url for your sticky note space. To add notes just click the "+" symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen. Then double click to edit your notes. easel.ly - Create free infographics online at: http://www.easel.ly/ easel.ly is currently in beta but we would love your feedback here. Drag and Drop pre-designed themes and vector assets onto your canvas for easy creation and customization of rich infographics.

We currently support Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Sorry Internet Explorer…

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