Keeping it Organized with Google Keep

http://r3.whistleout.com/public/images/articles/2013/12/Google-Keep-feature.png

Well, it has been a few weeks.  Things got kind of crazy before Thanksgiving, so hopefully we can pick it up again in December and finish the year strong. I'm going to keep it simple this week and talk about a tool I learned about a couple of weeks ago from a colleague of mine at South that I absolutely love! While it has been around for quite a while, this is a new tool for me and has proved incredibly useful in just a few short weeks.

I am a list-maker.  I make lists for everything: groceries, things I have to do at work and home, Christmas cards to send, tech tool ideas for this blog, etc. Just about anything in my life that can have a list, does.  I have tried a number of tools to organize and track my lists.  I have used tools from the computer, online tools, and ones I can sync to my phone.  While most of them had benefits and I liked them, this new one is by far the best I have found and definitely a keeper.

Google Keep is not just a post-it note type list organizer.  It goes beyond just making my own lists.  One of my favorite features so far is the sharing feature.  I have lists that I have share with co-workers for things we need to get done, and lists I share with my husband so he knows what to get at the grocery store on his way home.  Just like with my Google documents, I can share separate lists and notes with different people.  This has been incredibly helpful and has helped streamline my organization.

Some other features I really enjoy include color-coding my lists.  For example, right now, my work lists are orange, my home lists are blue, my purchasing lists are green, and my Christmas lists are red.  This helps with visual organization.  I can also drag and drop my lists on my Google Keep page to organize them in any order I want, so I can keep work and home lists separate.  For individual lists, I can set reminders for myself if there is something urgent I need to get done, add a picture to my list (this has been really helpful for my Christmas buying list), archive lists I don't want immediately visible but still want to access, and other features like labeling, including checkboxes on my lists if I want, and deleting items I have checked off the list.  For a quick and easy tool, it really has a lot of features and options.

Overall, this is a simple tool and for many of us, a necessary one.  What I like most about it is the easy use while it includes a variety of features.  Most of all, I like the sharing options.  Check out Google Keep and add it to your Chrome on your PC from the Chrome Store, or add it to your phone, or both!  This is a great tool to help keep both teachers and students organized.  So if your New Year's resolution this year is going to be getting organized (again!), get a head start and try out Google Keep.

Google Keep Site

Making Life Easier with the Chrome App Launcher

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVAgSJ0gxJg_sWaxIKiexbTM8Epw2_WZAq50y3b7026G5CM3P732KG_JARYulOOJk4t5a-6MvXcUxG3PDuZZvopCiIFZVEucqSrjOqVI74ed4WhWyWRy2UL-65nwqECYSSaPmo592gOss/s1600/chrome_app_launcher.png

After taking a break last week for NDEA, this week I wanted to talk about a tool that is more about making life easier and more efficient for both teachers and students.  The Chrome App Launcher is a tool that I have only recently started using, and I am amazed at how much easier it is to access the things I need to get to easily and how much faster I can be using that instead of my Chrome Apps page.

Basically, the Chrome App Launcher allows you to launch your favorite and most frequently used apps right from your desktop instead of having to first open Chrome, go to your Apps page, scroll through your pages of Apps, and find the one you want.  Even if you are accessing something on your main apps page, for most of us we are talking at least 3 steps: launch the browser, click the apps button to get to your apps page, and then clicking the app.  The App Launcher allows you to access your apps faster by essentially putting the apps page access on your desktop.

In addition to making it easier to launch your apps, it also makes it easy to organize and find them.  If you have a lot of apps (I had three pages of them when I started), you can organize them into folders, making them easier to locate.  I now have folders for my Office apps, my personal apps, my educational tools, my new things to try, etc.  My most frequently used ones I left on their own on the main page to make access easier.  And if you still have a ton of apps even after organizing them, you can use the search bar at the top of the tool to search for specific apps.

But wait, there's more!  This tool does more than just allow you to organize and quickly access your apps. The search bar also allows you to do basic searches for simple questions or do a Google search that will then open in a browser.  I found the simple question searches helpful because you can search simple math questions and avoid having to open up a calculator on the computer, or simple conversion questions, which can be helpful in a math or FACs class, but also just for personal use.

Overall, this tool has a lot of potential just for making life easier.  Teachers and students can both use it to make working and using Google more efficient and to stay more organized. To get the App Launcher on your computer, do a search on your computer for Chrome App Launcher.  You should see the app launcher icon appear and you can either right click and choose "Pin to Taskbar" or drag it to your taskbar.  Then you are ready to go!