MN K12 Tech Coordinator Tips & Tricks
This page defines a set of features and criteria to consider when looking for a robust note taking system.
| Features Wanted | ||
|---|---|---|
| • Syncing to desktop/cloud • Ability to transfer and work with on Mac • Organize by Sections • Organize by Tagging • Organize by Folders • Organize by Dates |
• Basic Formatting: Font, Size, Bold/Italic/Underline • Outlining (auto-format levels via styles bonus) • Numbering (auto-format levels via styles bonus) • Ability to create Tables • Insert date (and/or) time stamp |
• Search across all notes • Search within note • Highlighting (bonus) • Ability to draw (bonus) • Ability to import photos (bonus) • Ability to record audio (bonus) |
| • Meeting Management (see below) | • List Management | |
| • Mac Application Integration (see below) | • To Do Integration (see below) |
Sometimes a note is just a note, and it stands by itself. Sometimes you want to organize related information together with a series of notes (folders). Sometimes you want to have multiple "notebooks" with several sections to help organize longer notes.
You may work on several projects, and each of those projects hold periodic meetings. You might want something that organizes each meeting, tracking the meeting date, who was there, and what was discussed. During the meeting, you will most likely have tasks generated. It would be nice to be able to see all of the "tasks" across all of the meetings in one view. It would also be ideal if you could send a task to a dedicated task management app such as OmniFocus. Ultimately, I want to track all of my tasks in OmniFocus, but it is also useful to have the task documented (and easily retrievable) in the meeting notes. When I am working on getting things done, I want to use OmniFocus. When I am sitting in the meeting and we are discussing what needs to be done, I want to refer to the notebook app.
When I take notes, I like structure. I like categories, topics, and subtopics. Sometimes I just want them indented (outlined), sometimes I want them numbered and ordered. I want to be able to collapse groups, so that the information displayed can be simplified. I like different groups to have visual differences, for example the main topic might be font size 14 bold red, the sub topic size 12 bold blue, and the next level size 10 plain black.
It is also useful to be able to collapse an outline, so you can de-clutter your view when you want to look at the big picture. It can also be useful for presentations, when you don't want to reveal all of the information at once (or at all).
While structure is important, there are drawbacks to using a dedicated outlining application for note taking: You don't necessarily want everything to fit into simple rows of structured data. Maybe you want to insert a table, a drawing, or a picture. Outlining software falls short in this area.
Tagging is important. For example, you may have a monthly administrative meeting that covers several topics (but not every topic at every meeting). You need to be able to look up all notes that cover discussions on "Project X" whether Project X was discussed at a Project X committee meeting or a general administrative or board meeting.
You should be able to retrieve the notes based on date, so that if a question comes up regarding what was discussed at the meeting December 9th, you can easily pull that up.
I want to be able to work with my notes on the Mac. One of the problems with many note taking apps is that they have proprietary formatting, so you either have to settle for plain text notes, or find an app that makes both an iOS and Mac application and is designed to sync - of course this narrows your choice considerably. Other apps, such as OmniOutliner have problems in that each note is a separate file, so document management becomes problematic.
None of the apps that I have seen so far does all of these things.
Document Organization and Management
Where should notes be stored (in regards to Mac in particular)?: in a single-unifying app that has a database structure for all notes, or in single-document format? If single document style, how are they organized: one folder to store all meeting notes? Or in a project folder? Should it be one document per project/group (and use outlines within the document to mange each meeting), or one document per meeting (and put them all in a folder)? Having them all in one document keeps all the info in one place, but the document could get too long. Having a separate file for each meeting makes more sense, but makes it harder to go back and find/look up information. If we have an admin meeting and discuss classroom of the future technologies, and discuss a plan for interactive whiteboard deployment, should the note be stored: in the calendar events notes field? the admin folder? a meetings folder? a classroom technology folder? a whiteboard folder? a to-do list? How do we tie the notes to the calendar event? to the to-list list?
Question to consider: Should OmniFocus be used as the Note-Taking app? It has a "notes" field that can be associated at the Task or Project level. I could create a (never-ending) Project "Admin Meetings", then a task group for each meeting. The notes field could be used to manage each note. To Do items would be created as tasks. This still causes overlap: Just because a "task" is generated in an admin meeting, doesn't mean it should sit in the Admin Meeting "project"; more likely it should sit in the "Interactive Whiteboard" project. Also admin meetings have agendas. Shouldn't the notes be entered directly into the agenda?
I think I am going to: create a document called "Admin 10-11" for all admin meetings for the year. Then create new documents each year. For special projects and initiatives, such as "Interactive Whiteboards", they will get their own document. When the two topics intersect, each documents will have to be manually double-entered as necessary. Tasks will need to be double-entered into OmniFocus.
Comments
Nathaniel (unauthenticated)
Dec 5, 2011
I actually knew about most of this, but having said that, I still thought it was useful. Nice job! 11))