Note Taking Tools

The other day I wrote about Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). I mentioned there are several tools, commonly known as Web 2.0 tools, which people can now use to help them establish and maintain their PLEs. Over the coming days and weeks I am going to be writing about many of these tools. The first group of tools I want to address is note taking tools. As the name indicates, these tools can help users improve their productivity at taking notes. I used to be one of those people who wrote out all his notes with pen and paper. If I decided to use technology, I would fire up Microsoft Word and take notes with it. Or maybe if I did not have my laptop with me, but had access to another computer connected to the internet, I might compose an email to myself using webmail and take notes with that. Both of those methods were improvements over pen and paper; however, they were a far cry from what is currently available to those who desire to be most productive.

Now days I use Google Notebook as my primary notebook tool. I like that it is a web-based tool - one of the many Web 2.0 tools - and available to me from any computer when I log in to my Google account. Of course I usually have my notebook computer with my wherever I am. However, in those instances when I do not have my computer with me I can easily log on to another computer and access my notes. I can also easily share my notes with others and they can collaborate with me. This provides huge benefits that are not as easily achieved with a non-web-based tool. Google Notebook also allows me to have multiple notebooks and to search all of my notebooks similar to how I search the web with Google. One of the most attractive things for me initially was that it is free. I really dislike spending money on software only to find out it does not do what I wanted it to do.

Of course there are a number of other notebook tools available. In her Directory of Learning Tools, Jane Hart lists over 40 Note Taking/Sharing and Whiteboard Tools. I also looked at some other Web 2.0 tools which combine note taking capability with other functions. I briefly tried both Backpack and Zoho; they seemed more complicated to use than Google Notebook, though admittedly I did not spend very much time with either of them. Perhaps if I were to give them time I would find that they had extra functionality which I could use. Then again, maybe I would not.

For now I will keep using Google Notebook. If you don't currently use a notebook tool, try it out.

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)

The other day I wrote about information overload. One of the first terms that comes to mind when I go back and read the first line from that post - "We all have much more information from many more sources than we have ever had before." - is duh. Information overload is likely to be quite apparent to us all. However, what is perhaps less apparent to many of us is how to deal with it. In this post I will start to explore more fully some of the ways to deal with information overload.

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have been receiving much attention over the last few years, especially with the growth of Web 2.0 tools. Michele Martin in her blog, The Bamboo Project, has a great post about PLEs in which she gives descriptions, issues and ideas about PLEs and details some of the tools she uses. Robin Good also has a great post about PLEs -
Personal Learning Environments: What They Are And How To Implement Them. These two posts provide a good starting place for your learning about PLEs.

One of the key points to realize about PLEs is that by their very nature, they are personal. Consequently, each individual's PLE will likely be unique. I am in the process of updating my PLE to make the best use of many technological tools - those Web 2.0 tools I mentioned above. Once I have done that I will post my new PLE here. In the mean time, starting with my next post, I will be discussing some of those tools either individually or grouped by their primary function.

If you are interested in learning about a particular tool or group of tools please leave me a comment.