Create a Discussion Board for student use? A gradebook?

[Sarah Shields 0]

I have had some success using Evernote for a university-level history course. I would like to add an electronic discussion board for students to post and comment on each other's posts. Is there a way to do that within Evernote? Has anyone figured out how to add a gradebook to Evernote that allows students to see only their own grades?

Thanks for suggestions!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have had some success using Evernote for a university-level history course. I would like to add an electronic discussion board for students to post and comment on each other's posts. Is there a way to do that within Evernote? Has anyone figured out how to add a gradebook to Evernote that allows students to see only their own grades?

Thanks for suggestions!

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

I think Blackboard (available at most universities) is far better suited for discussions, comments, and grades. The software was designed specifically for that purpose, after all.

That's not to say you can't use Evernote in the classroom. There is plenty to do, especially if students work on collaborative projects, or if you do something like have them post a note with their thoughts on the week's readings. Shared notebooks are really powerful, and I encourage my students to take notes on the lectures / discussions and share them with one another there.

The goal for me is to inculcate a sense of treating the pursuit of knowledge as a shared endeavour, instead of something produced by people hiding in caves spontaneously generating great ideas, or students slaving away by themselves trying to memorize arcane bits of trivia. The whole point of the classroom environment, in my opinion, is to throw ideas together, let them bounce off one another, and produce something new. Evernote is perfect for that.

[Dan Wilson 85]

I agree with the assessment from Grumpy.  Also I have come across Piazza.  I had no success myself in attempting to introduce it in the past, though I'd like to try again in the future (I teach physics so my students tend to not like to write a lot).  We use Moodle (another VLE like Blackboard) and Piazza is supposed to integrate well with it.

 

When it comes to using Evernote in the classroom my aim is to show students how useful it is for them to use it to collect their notes, ideas and research.  I had a reasonably successful project in the past in which the students used Evernote as their assessed lab notebook.