Google+ Education: Part 6

It has been quite a while since I last posted something about Google+ and its educational uses, so allow me to present Google Keep. Google Keep is for saving notes, checklists, photos, and even voice memos either via the website or app. It may not be specifically designed for education but is another neat thing to add to our teacher toolboxes. Let me explain how and why.

Getting started online is a breeze since you do not even have to register if you have a Google+ account. If you do not have a Google+ account, you are missing out on this and a lot of other resources, so take a moment to register. Google Keep is completely free and automatically syncs across multiple devices in addition to saving everything to Google Drive. To get started with the app, install it on your device and either register or sign in.

Google Keep is very simple and easy to use making it the perfect tool for people, like me, who often have a million little paper notes scattered about. Using an internet browser, you can save notes, lists, and photos. With the app, you can do even more including creating voice memos that automatically save both the initial audio clip as well as a transcription. With either platform, you can add location and/or time reminders. Have you ever gone home for the day and then remembered that you have to do something first thing in the morning? With the Google Keep app, you can save a voice memo and then add a location, school, to get reminded automatically when you get into work the next morning. Cool, right?

Even though there are a lot of programs out there for note-taking, I would recommend trying this one out. In an earlier post, I recommended Evernote for the same purpose and even though Evernote and Google Keep are both designed to save notes, they are vastly different. You just need to determine which one best suits your needs or use multiple programs for different purposes. While I like Evernote for some tasks, it is, in my opinion, overly complex for my basic day to day notes, while Google Keep has the potential to help me completely clear my desk of Post-it Notes.

As awesome as it is, I was surprised to discover that Google Keep has been around for over two years already and very few people seem to have heard of it. Have you tried it out? What do you use to stay organized? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.