Sending Notes from Evernote to WordPress

In my previous post I discussed sending blog entries to Evernote. However, this can also be done in reverse. The blog could then become the public portfolio where others could comment and give feedback.

I’ve been wondering for sometime what would be the best way to use Evernote to post to WordPress. I write most of my posts within Evernote before copying them (and doing some touch-up formatting) in WordPress. But I’ve have always wanted to trim that copy-paste step out and then make it just work. I’d been wanting for this to be something I’d find in Evernote Trunk (an add-ons service), yet haven’t seen it. Well, I’ve figured it out, and it was simpler than I thought. And with the update to using rich text elements in the iPad app, it actually makes even more sense for me to be doing it this way.

The process is not that hard to setup and do, but you will need to make sure to keep a few things handy so that you can pretty much fly from thinking to logging in Evernote to posting without much effort and from any device that can send email.

Step 1: Configure the Post by Email Option in your WordPress Blog

The first thing that you will need to do is to setup your WordPress blog to do posts with email addresses. Here’s the steps for that:

Login to your WordPress Dashboard
Go to My Blogs (in the left hand menu)
Click on Enable
Now you’ll see an email address; copy that email address to the address book (create a new contact) of your mobile device (I called mine Send to Blog in the in the Company Name field)
Step 2: Create your Post in Evernote

Then you will want to do a test post. Within Evernote (doesn’t matter if you are using the browser or the application, though you might want to use the application since its a bit faster on most platforms). Create your post, adding whatever formatting, links, and pictures that you’d want to have.

Step 3: Send Post to WordPress from Evernote

After you’ve created the post (speaking from either the Evernote website or application), send the post to WordPress via email using the Contact that you created and saved in Step 1. And that’s it!

If you are using any Evernote applications that support rich text formatting, that formatting and any links will appear just as you formatted them within Evernote.

A Few Notes

Note #1: if you add multiple pictures to your note in Evernote, when it posts in WordPress, it will post as a picture gallery. You will also want to make sure that you don’t use too large of files if you are using the free WordPress.com account, you’ve only got so much space there before you are charged for additional space.

I did notice with a previous post that when I had multiple images in the note that they appeared twice in the post. This might have been an error on my part when adding the files to Evernote, but I’m note sure as of yet.

You will also notice that when you do this that the image will appear in the bottom of the post, not the top like it is here. I edited the post afterwards to have it appear at the top. It would seem that the best way to make it appear at the top is to manually put in the gallery short code.

Note #2: You will want to be associated with the short codes as noted in the the WordPress page for Post by Email. These will allow you to do things such as scheduled publishing, set categories, etc. I’ve got this bookmarked on my iPad as well as saved into Evernote for reference.

Note #3: You post will then appear on your website, with the prefaced header “Sent from Evernote, .” This is an HTML table set at the top of the post and can be removed by going into the WordPress dashboard and editing the post. I don’t see any means of changing that as that seems to be something appended to your email when sent from Evernote (I don’t mind it for other items, just these posts; if it were something to change before sending, that would be great).

Note #4: The first time I did this, I didn’t need to use the title short code. The second time, it seemed that I needed to do so. I’d probably recommend using it just to be safe. It totally killed my titles when I didn’t.

Using Evernote habitually

The more we use Evernote portfolios in the classroom the more students turn to them as a place to be creative and stay organized. During my literacy lab today a group of students were working on second drafts of stories they were writing and one student decided to organize all his work by creating new notebooks for separate academic subjects. A third student was using an itouch to finish up a presentation on Jonny Cash that he was independently preparing for the class. (It was one of his goals). A fourth student was using an itouch to log her goals. These were all actions students took without prompting.

When I see this kind of spontaneous incorporation of the Portfolios into the life of the class I know that the tools are working well. It also gives me a chance to begin to see how students make their portfolios their own. I have never mentioned anything about creating new notebooks but one student discovered the possibility and realized it was a tool that HE wanted or needed to keep himself organized. Now, if others want to learn about that skill he will be available to teach them. In fact, today I will have him present his work to the rest of the class. It’s an important discovery and one others can learn from. This kind of self direction is what I hope this technology provides for my students, a freedom and power to control their learning on their own terms.

Recording the entire learning process

Back in April I wrote about how students were using Evernote to record parts of the writing process. Below are photos of the entire process. (The first draft of a book review written on paper. The second draft off the review after a single student conference typed into Evernote. The rubric and feedback from many other students after they read the 2nd draft. The final draft of the review types in Evernote.)

Having the entirety of the writing process is extremely valuable as it clearly shows what kind of changes were made along the way. It is now easy to go back and reflect on the process and I can have a clear sense of how I can continue to design lessons to improve writing. Of course this kind of documentation can really happen with any subject.

Documenting and Sharing Student Writing

Beyond using portfolios as a place to store finished work, Evernote allows my students to use it as a place for ongoing work.

This week my students have been working on book reviews for works of fiction they have been reading in book clubs. As they move through the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, conferencing, revising, editing, publishing) I am having them use Evernote to share their work with me. I spend a lot of time helping students become good critics of the writing of their peers. We do that in authentic ways where classmates can really help each other become better writers. That means that students are conferencing with each other at least once as they move toward publishing. Of course I want to have the opportunity to read kids work, but I tend to wait until they have already meet with peers.

Kids can often become frustrated in the writing process when they have to be constantly rewriting their work. This is where word processing comes into play with my students. I always ask students to write a first draft by hand. Most kids are not really fast on the keyboard so I want to make sure their ideas don’t get bogged down by the speed of their typing. However, once they have done a first draft and received feedback they like to get on the computer to type their revisions. In that way they also don’t have to do as much rewriting after I give feedback.

So I can see the work they do and give them feedback (without having to collect everyone’s papers) I have students put their revisions on Evernote using the Evernote word processing option. I also ask them to photograph their first draft so I can see the changes that they have already made. In this way it is easy for me to look at all the work they have done so far and offer changes and suggestions. I do this on a piece of paper that they can hold when they go back to their writing. Additionally students can photograph my suggestions as well. This ongoing documentation is a great way to show student growth along the path of a single piece of writing. When portfolios are “alive” in this way they become valuable tools for students, teachers and parents.

Below is an example of a student’s first draft (in photo) and their typed revision ready for me to look over.

Seeing Portfolios as a personal space of learning

“Can I just put anything I want into my Evernote portfolio,” asked one of my students this week after she was trained in the process of uploading work. There was an excitement in her voice and I knew that she already had developed a connection to the idea of storing her work.

We have just spent the last week preparing for student led conferences that use Evernote as a central tool. When the kids sit down with their parents and me to share the work they have been doing, their portfolio will be open and the vehicle for the conversation. They have each chosen at least 3 artifacts to include. (One piece that demonstrates their work in the area of literacy, one that demonstrates their work in mathematics and one of their own choosing). The process of preparing this group of 23 kids for the conference has been amazingly stress free. Partially because they know their is an authentic audience and they are leading the show, AND because the process of recording and reflecting on their work was actually enjoyable when Evernote was built into it.

That isn’t to say that having the students write reflection is easy. For some kids it is a real challenge. It is one thing to put things into the portfolio, it is quite another to really move to the next step, which is reflection. Helping students to think deeply about their work is an ongoing challenge. Last year we created a submission form that used a checklist. (See “old” Trillium Portfolio sheet below). This was helpful for kids who struggled with writing, but it didn’t give the opportunity to think and write a little more deeply about their work. This years submission sheet, while not quite perfect yet, was a step to simplify the sheet itself, but give more opportunity for kids to write about the process, what they learned, who they worked with and why they think it is “ready”.

The submission sheet isn’t necessary for all the work that kids do AND it could be added a week or even a month after kids upload a piece into Evernote. However, through out the year there will many many more formalized opportunities to reflect on their work, and not simple put things into the portfolio.

However, when all is said and done, I want kids to see their portfolios as a place to really keep their learning, think about their learning and share their learning. It is a tool that they can easily access and use to share who they are as a learning today, and for a lifetime.

Getting Evernote into the hands of kids

The 4 months of work that I did learning about Evernote was always with the intention of getting Evernote into the hands of the kids as soon as possible.

The major tool that needed to be acquired was the itouch. They aren’t cheap (around $200) but I was able to put out a request to families to donate money to purchase one or two of them and to my great surprise and delight two families actually purchased them for the class. The itouch is such a powerful tool as it is mobile, it is something the kids love to use, and it provides the ability to immediately upload audio, text and photos. This ability is vital when designing a user-friendly portfolio system. With more students owning phones and itouch type devises the cost of obtaining them will go down for schools. In the future it won’t be up to the school to provide the financing for the mobile devices as so many students will already have them.

Of course there are questions of equity and accessibility that come into play. For that reason the portfolio system will not be based on requiring students to have their own mobile devices. However, it looks like the direction for portfolios is heading that way. Here at Trillium it is clear that there needs to be a base level of financial support to get itouch or ipad into the classroom. I am not trying to sell these brands but they are the ones that I use and they are perfectly aligned for the kind of work that we are doing. (I will write more later how the itouch and ipad work in harmony for me using the IOS5 operating system.)

When choosing a portfolio system I really wanted one that students could access from school, home, on the go, anywhere that they could connect to the internet. Evernote allows that kind of access. But I also wanted a system that they could continue on with even if they were no longer at Trillium. I wanted it to be a system that could integrate into their lives and not just be a “school” based tool. As a larger goal I wanted students to see their learning, to see the work that they do at school, to be integrated into their lives and I want their lives to be integrated with their work at school. The paradigm shift is happening around the world where school and life are connected in a deeper and I think that electronic portfolios can be part of that shift. For these reasons I wanted students to have their own Evernote account, not just a “notebook” within my account. (This is also a possibility for those who want more control of their students portfolios. The kindergarten teacher at Trillium uses Evernote in this way).

Setting up an account for each child isn’t very complicated but it does take some time. In the past I have assigned the job to a tech savy parent who is ok with a bit of data entry.

Here are the steps I took. All this work was done on a computer not on an itouch or ipad.

#1. First I created a gmail account for each student. To open up an account you need an e-mail address and by making accounts for each child I would have some access to their accounts in the future if I needed.

#2. I opened up evernote accounts using account names and passwords that would be easy for the kids to remember. I made sure that I recored all this information.

#3. To active the evernote account I needed to log into their gmail account and click on the link sent by evernote.

#4. At this point the accounts are all ready to go. However, there are a few other things to do.

#5. Have each student (or a volunteer) “share” their Notebook with me. They share by adding my e-mail address to their their list of people to share with. Students can also share with their parents, grandparents, friends, etc. By sharing (in the free version) students allow others to “read only” their work.

#6. I use the Lexmark Pinnacle Pro scanner (which is integrated with Evernote) and need to add students Evernote e-mail addresses to this scanner. This allows them to send work directly from the scanner to their accounts. (I WILL COVER THIS DEVICE AND ITS USE IN ANOTHER POST).

#7. I copy and past each students personal Evernote e-mail address (found under settings in each account) to my contact folder which allows me to send work directly from my computer, phone or ipad.

Once these steps are finished the kids are ready to start uploading work.

In the first month I just wanted to get kids comfortable with the tools so I let them make many choices of items to upload. I didn’t want them to have to worry too much about reflection for the first few times. Once they got a hang of how to upload, how the software and apps worked (adding tags and titles), how to upload pictures, etc, they would be ready to do the more heady work of reflect on the work they did upload.

Below you can see two students using the hand-held devices. One student is logging on while the other student is lining up a piece of work to photograph and add to their portfolio.