Three weeks into my Evernote experiment and the organizing of my life ‘on line’ is underway. Perhaps the area that required the most thinking for me was my ‘notebook stack’. How would I put it all together?

Notebooks follow my interests – I am not just interested in technology and language teaching for me, but in the introduction of tech into education in general. My notebooks that have sprung from this reflect the first ‘thought’ that comes into my head when I see an article or site. “Ah – technology in the classroom’ sends it right to “Tech”. Then I use the tags I apply to help to refine what exactly it relates to. Some broad topics get their own notebooks – such as Flipping Class or PBL. “Other Subjects” allows me to save, and pass on, neat things I find that I can’t use but someone else in my school could. One top tip I did learn via Twitter was to have an @inbox notebook. It serves as my holding tank for anything that I send to Evernote – and allows me to categorize it later. A great idea.

The core of my stack are my course notebooks. As I teach  a language – and multiple levels at a time – organizing by course is the best for me. In any one notebook I include not only my unit plan but also my daily lesson plan. Those are prepped the night before class and edited – either text or audio comment – after the lesson. For each I also add any .pdfs or small audio files used that day.  If there is one thing that teaching shows us – a plan may not always go as it should and my records have to show that.

I know that my Evernote use will evolve. I am looking forward to see further refinement of my notebook stacks – and what they might look like by the time the year ends.

Now if I can only be brave enough to try some IFTTT’s!

Colleen