Teacher Week ’13 – Organizing for Instruction

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It’s Day 3 of Teacher Week!! Hosted by Blog Hoppin’, today’s topic is Organizing for Instruction.

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I’m going to talk about my plan for student data organization. In the past I’ve had 2 to 3 crates in the back of my classroom where each child has a folder that I keep assessments, testing data, signed documents, etc. Well, no more! This year I plan to use Evernote as my digital portfolios.

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Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A “note” can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten “ink” note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
(Wikipedia)

Evernote also allows you to sync across platforms: computers, tablets, and smart phones. There are so many different ways you can put data in Evernote; you can even email it into a specific notebook!

I’ve had Evernote on my devices for about three years, although I hadn’t done much with it. A few notes here and there. I felt like there had to be more than this and then BOOM! I realized there was. Last year I attended an Evernote workshop where fellow educators introduced me to “stacks”.

Think about those crates previously in the back of my room….. The “stacks” are the crates. The “notebooks” are those Manila folders. The “notes” are all those pieces of paper we stuff in those folders. Get it?

Here’s a pic of a portion on my Evernote setup. See where I have 103 notebooks in the stack? Each child has their own notebook.

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Each notebook uses the same format: Class Period – Last Name, First Name. That way the folders are grouped alphabetically by the period.

See?

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What are some ways you’re planning on organizing your instruction? Head over to Blog Hoppin’ and link up! I can’t wait to see your awesome ideas!

Until the next time,

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One Comment
  1. What a great website! I have seen that but never really looked into it. I will definitely explore it a little more now to use with my 5th graders. Thanks so much for sharing!!

    XO, Kelly Anne
    Appleslices4th.blogspot.com

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