Google Keep for the classroom

Have you used Google Keep? Do you love sticky notes? Google Keep is sticky notes 100 times better. You can go to keep.google.com or click on the icon to get there.

So yes, it is sticky note app. You can take notes, color code, and add labels to these notes, but it is so much more. Here are a few of the things you might not know Google Keep can do.

1. Plan Book

I like to make labels for the top of the notes and keep those 4 notes at the top so it works as my plan book. I can access it from any device and it’s easy to update. I did steal this idea from Kasey Bell at Shake Up Learning.

I created my headers in Google Drawing. I used insert image and selected from the Creative Commons free use library and then added a shape with a custom color and increased the transparency. Of course, the one at the end is a Bitmoji because everything is better with a Bitmoji :-). I love that I can set reminders inside my notes. I don’t always want to open my calendar to create a reminder and it’s convenient that I can do it while creating the note.

2. Save to Google Keep

There is a Chrome Extension that allows you to send bookmarks directly to Google Keep. When you are on a site, click the lightbulb and a window will pop-up with the link and the option to make a note.

I love this features, especially when I’m in Twitter. I like and retweet so many things that I can never find them later. Sending them to Google Keep prevents me from losing great ideas. It’s a simple as right-click (or control-click) and the menu pops up and allows you to send it to Keep.

3. Capture Text

This one kind of blew my mind. You can take any image (not PDF but we will address that in just a second) and upload it to Google Keep. Then click on the three dots at the bottom (more) and select Grab image text. Scroll beneath your image and magic has happened. Text was created from the image. It’s not perfect, but for that document that you only have a pdf for, now you can get the text from it and NOT have to retype all of the information. I the example below, I have a book that is out of print and I wanted to share it with another teacher.

That brings me to the PDF issue. You can’t upload the PDF as an image. No problem on a Mac (I’m sure PC and Chromebooks have something similar). You can open the PDF in Preview and then export as JPEG. Now you have an image that you can upload to Google Keep. Easy Peasy!

4. Drawing

Now, you can also do this with Google Drawing using the scribble tool but if you are already in Keep, then there is a drawing feature. You can download the image, copy it to Google Docs or share it just like any other Keep note. Students can quickly draw their thoughts and share them.

This didn’t cover the basics of Google Keep. Get in there and play with it. I think you will love it as much as I do.