Google Keep (Thing 7)

I'm almost getting tired of hearing myself gush about Google apps, but I am so in love with Google Keep! I'm a copious notetaker but have always preferred to take notes by hand because that way, I can organize the notes however I want without having to be frustrated by the formatting restrictions of a particular program like Word or Pages. However, now that I have started using Google Docs more, I've switched to taking notes electronically about half of the time. I know that some people swear by their tablets and styluses with programs like Evernote or Paper; I have downloaded both of these programs but have not really spent the necessary time with them to figure out how to make them work for me. I get super enthusiastic about new apps that seem like they will make organizing my life easier for me, and then I get overwhelmed by all the options in the apps and give up.

However, Google Keep was easy to use from the start, probably because it is integrated so well with the other Google apps (obviously). I am dedicated to my Google Docs and am starting to learn how to organize Drive more effectively, and Slides and Forms have helped me a lot this past year. That was a big part of the reason that I was able to make sense of Keep, I think; I've grown used to the workings of other Google apps and am willing to learn new ones because I think they will actually help me instead of just getting in the way.

My laptop is usually covered with sticky notes (both physical and on the desktop app) and it makes it difficult to see what is important and what is old or unnecessary. I have a hard time getting rid of things (electronically and in real life) because I think that I MAY need to use them in the future and don't want to throw away perfectly good...whatevers. If I can choose just one system, though, I can be more efficient and focused with my notes, and I probably won't forget things as often. I've tried to make the Google Calendar reminders work for me for non-events like "shred documents" or "call parent", but there seems to be a lot of clicking to make that work. (I'm still learning about Calendar, though, so I could be missing something.) The Apple Stickies app on the desktop doesn't have reminders and you have to remember to open the app to get at your lists, which is fine for a note that just has articles I want to read later, but not so good for a time-sensitive to-do list. Same goes for the Memo app on my Samsung; I use it to record shopping lists or books I want to read or things like that, but it won't remind me when my bills or due or when I need to make a doctor's appointment.

Enter: Google Keep! I can make regular lists of students who need help, checklists with boxes for tasks I need to complete, or image notes if I need a visual for the information I'm writing. The checklists are my favorite, I think - when you complete something and check it off, the task doesn't disappear. It just gets grayed out, the box is checked, and it's moved to the bottom of the note. I like seeing what I've accomplished, and I also like the ability to go back to a completed task if  I need to. I can color-code and set reminders, and because it automatically syncs across all devices, I'll get a notification on both my laptop and my iPad. I don't do school business on my cell phone, but if I did, that reminder would pop up there too, which would be really convenient. I like the fact that you can label the notes and see either all of them or just the ones with a particular label. Another thing I just found out was if you share a note with someone, that person can also edit it; you can use it to have an electronic conversation, which I think is pretty cool. I also have several Gmail addresses that I use for different things, so I suppose I could keep different sets of notes, but that might get confusing, and I'm pretty sure the reminders would only work for the account I was signed in to. I'll have to test that out!

Here is a screenshot of what my Google Keep looks like. I just started with it today, so there aren't many notes, but I think I've tried all of the different kinds of notes there are, and I love them all.

 
I can see several uses for Keep in my professional life and with the students. For reading and writing conferences, I usually use a sheet of paper with my attendance list and a clipboard as I walk around the classroom, crossing students off as I've talked to them. But since this happens regularly, I have to remember to whom I'm spoken, about what we talked, what their goals were, and when I need to follow up with whom. I think Keep would be a much more effective tool for keeping track of this stuff, and since I have a school iPad, I can walk around with that instead of my laptop and still have the notes sync to my computer so I can review them later. I could do a label for each class or even for each unit if I wanted to be more specific; I could also color-code within a class label for different conferences. Keep would also be useful for team or department meetings, both places where I have to write things for future reference AND create checklists for things I have to complete. I'm going to be team leader next year, and this necessitates more organizational capacity than I have now. It seems that several Google apps, Keep in particular, will help me with this.   

Since I don't have an iPhone but I do have an iPad, I'm also going to check out these other note-taking apps. I've looked at a few of them superficially, but I'll take some time to see if any of them are better than Keep. I'm sort of biased already, but I'm sure that's pretty obvious.  :)