Digital Modelling Books - Part 1

I have been trialling digital modelling books for mathematics with my students and they seem to be working really well for both my students and my self.  There are a number of key elements that make up this system and in this blog post I will outline the system I am using.  If you are new to using Evernote you may want to have a look at a previous presentation I shared at a mobile learning conference.  It gives you a bit of background as to what it is, however, if in doubt please leave a comment and I will help you out!

Evernote is the equivalent of a digital notebook - you can create notebooks and create individual notes that go inside your notebook, just like pages of a book.

4 main components I use to create digital modelling books:

1. Apple TV with an iPad

2. Penultimate app

3. Evernote app and online/desktop version

4. Google Sites

Setting up Shared Evernote Notebooks:

Notebooks in Evernote are private by default - this allows for your notes to only be seen by you.  However there are options to share these notebooks and to allow others to work on notebooks as well.  The last option is a paid feature of Evernote.  All the steps I talk about below are able to be completed with a free Evernote account and free Penultimate app.

Firstly, in our class Evernote account, I set up a notebook for each of my groups, for example; maths groups.  Notebooks are able to be created on both the app and online, however, I prefer to do this part through Evernote on a browser or the desktop version.  These notebooks are set up in our class Evernote account - we have 1 shared account for my entire class that we all use.

Once a notebook has been set up for each group, I set up a shared link for each of the notebooks that I want to have public access to.  To do this hover over the notebook and choose the share icon (there are a number of ways to do this):

It gives you several options to choose from - choose the last option: Publish. 

This allows people to access your Evernote notebook if they have the link.

It will take you to a new pop up window and the final step is to copy the Public URL - this is what I use so students are able to access the notebooks from our class website.  

These notebooks are accessed by my students through our class google site - so from here I copy the link and paste it on our maths area on our google site.  This makes our maths content accessible from one place for my students from home and school.  It allows them to easily find the information and support that they need.  Also parents can access them to support students with their learning.

If you are going to send students directly to this URL you may want to use a web link shortening service like bit.ly to make the link more accessible for students as the link Evernote provides is very long.

Your final step here is to open up Penultimate and link the app to your Evernote account.  To do this click on the 'Settings' button in the top left hand corner and add your Evernote account details.  Once they are linked you will not have to do this again, unless you sign out.

You don't need to worry too much about your Evernote notebooks again until right at the end.  When you share your Penultimate notes to Evernote it will give you an option to choose the Evernote notebook you want to place the note into.

The next post will detail how to use Penultimate as your modelling books and then share these notes across to your Evernote notebooks to make them immediately accessible for your students.