Meet Google Keep - Organizing your thoughts wherever you go

This time, it's going to be different. With a brand new year, brimming with opportunities, one of the top ten new year's resolutions is to "get organized". With so much of our lives online, to say things can get overwhelming is an understatement. As you devise a plan to get more organized, Google Keep is a note taking application that you may want to look at. 

Google Keep is a note taking application developed by Google and is available as a mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems and as a web application.

Google Keep lets you:

• capture, edit, on your notes on any device, any device, 
• add notes, lists, photos and audio to Keep.
• organize your notes with labels and color coding
• share and collaborate your notes with others
• Automatically transcribe voice recordings created through Keep notes
• Archive notes and create copies of notes
• sync notes between devices using the user's Google account

To download go to https://www.google.com/keep/

Makeover Your Lesson Using ThingLink

Problem: You’ve taught the same lesson for the past five years. How do you make it better?

Solution: ThingLink, of course! It’s FREE and it’s easy.

ThingLink is a digital tool that allows you to turn any image into an interactive graphic. You can create multiple hot spots on specific parts of an image and turn that image into a multimedia launch pad.

Imagine this. Your lesson is on volcanoes. You have a short video clip on lava landscapes, a web site that depicts the volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean, and a cross section that shows the basic components of a volcano. You also have a graphic organizer on volcanic vocabulary that students will use in their groups.

Here’s how easy it is to create a ThingLink. First, you upload an image. Next, you link your content to the image. It really is that simple. (You do have to create an account but it’s free for educators.)

ThingLink is a tool that is suitable for all classrooms. To learn more, click here. If you have comments or questions about using ThingLink or other digital tools, we’d love to hear from you. Post a comment or send us an email.