What I Thought About iPads

Having iPads in the classroom was very resourceful. Instead of having to deal with going to the computer labs and not knowing where or when to go, we were always in the classroom and we could still use the Internet. It really was resourceful during our big projects, because we could shoot videos or take pictures all over the school. By having the iPads, our class could virtually be anywhere and do anything unless it was blocked by the school wifi. We tried reading Huck Finn on them but it was very difficult considering the page numbers weren't the same in any iPad. In theory though, it would save the school a lot of money in books as long as they had a better system for pagination of the books and what's not.

Although the iPads were very resourceful, they had their difficulties.For one, if you didn't have Evernote or some type of word document program you couldn't write things and be able to utilize what you did in class at home. Nothing against the iPads but I would rather not have to use so much technology and have various accounts for "social networks" like Dropbox and Evernote when if I had my own iPad I could have Word and then just  complete it later at home.

Personally, I think that a one on one approach would be much more useful. By the iPad not being exclusively mine, using Evernote and Dropbox became a hassle. Everytime I had to leave I also had to logout of every network I used. By being able to bring it home and keep it all four years, I would be able to utilize all the things I had previously learned and I wouldn't have to sign up for all the networks and deal with the trouble of logging out of everything each time I leave class.

What I Thought About Evernote

Evernote is very handy for a few reasons, but the major one being there is no Word on the iPad. Without ever note it is almost pointless to have the iPad because I can't drop any documents into my dropbox that it need to take home from school which means I have to write it in my notebook so I can take something home to study with but that makes the iPad practically useless. Also, Evernote has options like bold, italics, and underline that I really like when I am taking notes while Mr. P lectures. I really like that Evernote gives me the option to use these features right at the top of the screen I'm typing on. It was just really nice to have a means of writing on the iPad without having to use notes and then go through all the effort of emailing it to myself. It was also very nice that I could organize my notes into notebooks. This feature allowed me to compartmentalize and subsect units in our studies this year. Another usefully feature was Evernote's ability to insert videos, pictures, or recordings. It was very nice that I could take a picture of what was happening or record something Mr. P said and then just drop it into my notes. That way my notes could coordinate with what he was saying.

The few problems I ran into dealt with my obsessive organization and set up of my notes. As I'm writing you I just learned of this tab button that I have needed all year. It would be very useful if you wonderful people could label things a little more efficiently so that users know what button means what. It would overall just be very helpful to have more note formatting like Word has. I prefer to tab and bullet and subsect my notes as previously mentioned. Having better labeling would be resourceful for all users of Evernote.

The only suggestion I have to make Evernote more user friendly is better labeling. I know my fellow students would agree with me in saying that was probably the hardest part of using Evernote. Otherwise, Evernote is very useful especially for the iPad. WithoutEvernote, the iPad would have been virtually useless.