Evernote stuff

I seriously loved Evernote. What I really liked about using it was the way it let me access my notes and projects literally anywhere. Like, even if my computer broke, I could just run up to the library and have all my stuff with me. It's cool. I'm a fan.  It was also really easy for me to access my notes to study them at home. While I would normally just save it to my email, this is much faster and just better overall.  It's also good to know that even if my email goes under, I still have all my important notes and stuff saved elsewhere. It's also nice that my notes don't get lost in the clutter of my inbox, that they have their own special place. I also don't have to handwrite my notes this way, which is awesome because I have terrible handwriting and am always forgetting my loose-leaf notes at school.

                Like I said, I really like Evernote. There are only a few things I dislike. The major one for me was that there was no spellcheck. Because we're typing on a smaller keyboard on our ipads, it's hard to be an accurate typer. All of my notes that I took in evernote are riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. Another thing was the fact that I couldn't open Word documents in Evernote. or at least, I couldn't figure it out. Either way, I was working on something and it would have been much easier to go directly to the word document, but instead I had to do some weird copy paste thing. Also, if it could hook up to dropbox, that'd be sweet. Because those two things together would just be like file sharing/storing heaven. 

My iPad stuff

The iPads in the classroom were extremely useful. They let us get to dropbox really easily and efficiently, so getting assignments without wasting paper was nice. Also, if I lost the assignment sheet for something I could usually find it on there. Without the iPad, I would probably never have used dropbox. It also connected us to other helpful aps like Evernote. Evernote made it really simple to save projects I was working on so I didn't have to go through extraneous steps to save it. Also, by not saving it to my email, I ensured that I'd be able to get to the assignment at school (where the wifi blocks some emails) and even if my email isn't working. I still really think that the eco-friendly part of the iPads was really cool. We probably used half the paper that I did in other classes.  Overall, I think that the iPads really helped me learn this year.

                The few things I disliked about the iPads weren't really that major. I didn't really like the whole small keyboard thing, but that's just because I have arthritis and it's hard for me to type on small keyboards sometimes. I also didn't really like sharing it with the bio classes, just because whenever I had to take a picture for something, I had to go through pictures of dissected rats to get to my own pictures. But still, that's not really a major issue for me.  I didn't really like the quality of the camera, as it wasn't good for taking videos for projects or pictures that showed the image clearly. Youtube was blocked, which kind of sucked. I think Youtube would have been useful for certain projects. I also didn't like that I had no place that I could spell check my work. As there was no Microsoft Word, it would have been nice to have an ap that could edit some of my spelling and grammar for me.

                I don't think that getting ipads on a 1:1 basis would be a good idea. While they're useful, I think having kids bring them home would be a bit extreme. Because we're all teenagers, we're bound to break some stuff. And it would suck if that stuff was a super expensive piece of technical equipment. Also, with aps like Evernote, I don't really see a need for bringing the ipads home. Because you can have files at literally any computer, you don't need to have the same device with you. I think giving an ipad to each individual person would be a waste of money. On the other hand, getting more ipad carts would be a good idea. They were extrememly helpful in class, and I think that if they were in more classes, that'd be amazing.