Friday, August 22, 2014

Evernote and Postach.io, A Match Made In Tech Heaven

If I've said it once, I've said it quite a few times, blogging is an open reflection of learning and is a wonderful (and easy) way to share our learning. I have been blogging in this space for over 5 years now. I have over 500 posts and have shared a bunch. I couldn't imagine my professional life without my blog.

Recently, I've been wanting to share more and more. But I faced a quandary. I wanted to share just little bits of information with a little detail. Just one or two things that didn't need much depth but that just didn't fit in this space because that isn't the focus here either because of a specific timeframe or for some other reason. I have so much rich information I am curating and I want to share it but I need the right way to do it.

Well Steven, Twitter would be a great use for that. And frankly you are already doing that there.

Well Self, you are correct. But I am limited with Twitter. 140 characters doesn't leave me much room for the kind of depth I was seeking.

Then I discovered Postachio.

And now I have a new obsession.

Postachio is dead simple blogging and publishing. Don't believe me? Watch.


In its essence, it's a hook for your Evernote account that allows you to post by simply tagging a note in a specific notebook with a Published tag. That's it. No fuss, no mess.

Y'all know how much I love Evernote. (If you don't you should read my posts.) So for me this made so much sense. I am curating so much in my Evernote already. And using some IFTTT recipes (you can read about those too) I am saving a bunch there. So now I have an easy way to share that. I move notes into my Postachio specific notebook, edit them, then just add a Published tag. Thats it!

And you can take advantage of Evernote's powerful tools like the web clipper and Skitch to really create amazing and simple posts. And because Evernote lives on all your devices (at least it should), you can publish from virtually anywhere.

So for me, this solution was perfect! I finally have a way to get those short, individual thoughts out of my Evernote and share them with the world.

Which got me thinking...

This would be incredible for schools!

Think about it. Evernote has so many wonderful portfolio features like audio notes and inserting documents and PDFs right into notes. So for students to create portfolios there makes a whole bunch of sense. Now hook that portfolio notebook to Postachio and you have a wonderful, shareable, public representation of student work. It really can give kids a simple way to have a global audience for their work.

And not just kids. I advocate for School Leaders, Administrators and Teachers to use Evernote for professional growth portfolios. Now with Postachio those can be easy, public representations of learning.

For me, Postachio won't at all replace this space. It's the additional space I was seeking for so long. But for some, Postachio could be a great place to start the blogging process because of its integration with Evernote and all the rich features there.

Oh, did I mention both Evernote and Postachio are free?

You can check out my new Postachio site at http://postachio.web20classroom.org to see what I am curating.

And be sure to check out the Postachio blog. They have a great series on #PostachioEd, using the platform in a variety of ways in the classroom. 
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