The final letter!
K. It seems that I’ve been looking for a flashy “K” for a long, long time, yet a good option still alludes me. So here we are at “K is for Google Keep” – the trusty tool that is one of my all-time Google favourites. My everyday Google Keep account looks like this when zoomed in; I should have just done K is for Keep years ago and been done the alphabet sooner.
What: This tool, found in the Google Waffle, is a note-taking multi-tool. People sometimes ask why they shouldn’t just use a Google Doc to collect the same things – link, images, text, checkboxes… My answer is ease and convenience. I use Keep somewhat as a list-maker, but primarily as a link-catcher. Because Google Drive doesn’t let you just store weblinks, Google Keep is the place where I keep and organize links of resources that I want to access in the future.
For this video, I’ve touched on a dozen things that Google Keep can do: 1. Save weblinks and text, 2. Save images, 3. turn lists into clickable checkboxes, 4. Colour code for organization 5. Label (think hashtags or tags) with 1 or more labels, 6. Share and collaborate with others, 7. Capture Voice notes on mobile, listen to them on any device, 8. Grab editable text from an image, including handwriting, 9. Add drawings, 10. Insert a Keep note into a Google Doc, Slides, or Sheet, 11. Search the Google Keep ecosystem, 12. Organize your notes by pinning, moving to reorganize, or archiving.
Audience: I use Google Keep just about as much in my personal life as I do in my educator life. Students have access to Google Keep through the waffle and I firmly believe that we should be teaching students about digital organizational tools as young as 3rd or 4th grade.
Even though some of Google Keep’s features like a click-able checklist are now available in Google Docs, Google Keep’s simplicity still makes it a good tool to introduce students to.
Time to Play: You can become a note-taker in Google Keep in 30 seconds or less. For basic notetaking, the interface is very easy to use and intuitive. Most tools are accessible from the simple tool bar at the bottom of each note.
Organizational elements like managing and creating labels and assigning titles to colours are easy enough to do, but will take a few extra minutes to figure out. Ultimately, the power of Google Keep is in its simplicity. It has lots of features, but they are all quite easy to learn just by clicking and trying.
Equipment: This is Google Keep’s superpower. The desktop app and mobile apps both work fantastic. The mobile app has a voice recording feature that the desktop doesn’t have, although you can access recordings from the desktop site.
Another feature of the mobile app is the ease with which you can switch between Google Keep accounts. Here it the workflow. Open the Google Keep app in one of your accounts. To switch accounts, simply swipe down on your profile picture. If you are logged into the 2nd account, it will flip over to it immediately. This is one of the reasons that Google Keep is a superior note-taking option to Google Docs or other notetaking apps like Evernote.
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What I learned today... 