Using Evernote as room mom at my son's school

[Leslie Godwin 1]

I'm a huge Evernote user and love it for keeping track of details, records, information, etc. But I want to get the most out of it as a room mom this year...I'm my son's second grade room mom.

I'd love to share ideas with any of you who are room moms or otherwise organizing activities with Evernote.

Thanks!

Leslie Godwin

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I'm a huge Evernote user and love it for keeping track of details, records, information, etc. But I want to get the most out of it as a room mom this year...I'm my son's second grade room mom.

I'd love to share ideas with any of you who are room moms or otherwise organizing activities with Evernote.

Thanks!

Leslie Godwin

Hi. Welcome to the user forums! I'm interested to hear what ideas other users have to offer. You look a little young in your photo to be a room mom, though

Just in case you didn't know, Evernote has a microsite for educators at

http://evernote.com/...ics/one_to_one/

I've collected a list of use cases here, and I think some of them might help out.

http://www.princeton...-use-cases.html

And, you might want to take a look at some of the videos of use cases that Evernote has created. I've got links to some of those here.

http://www.princeton...multimedia.html

If you could tell us more about what kind of things a room mom does (I never had one), then we might be able to make some more concrete suggestions!

[Candid 167]

I'd begin by thinking about the members of your son's class and their parents. How likely is it that they will be able to access Evernote with ease? If you think they will be comfortable with technology, you can consider setting up a special shared notebook for the class.

You could keep contact lists, calendars, sign up sheets, event announcements, etc in this folder. While some of these materials you'll produce yourself, you want to also work with the classroom teacher to have her either put in some things or send them to you to put in.

You'll want to monitor how this is working for you: do the parents use the notebook you are creating or do the things it get ignored. Obviously, if the parents ignore it, then you'll need to find another way to communicate like email or phone calls. At first it might be wise to send emails with links to the notebook and various items.

You'll also want to move expired items out of the notebook so that when parents access it they aren't bogged down in old materials.

You'll also want to think about privacy issues. How have things like emails and phone numbers of parents been shared by other classroom mom's in the past? Did they get permission from each parent before sharing, as parents to rescind sharing, or just share?

[Leslie Godwin 1]

I wasn't on this page when I responded earlier...NOW I get the joke that I look a little young to be room mom!! LOL...and a little boyish, I would add. I have a different pix of myself on most of these pages, and assumed that was the one you saw. How embarrassing!!

Thank you both so much for the very helpful responses! I have checked out the educator microsite, and was torn where to post. I'll keep an eye on both.

I'm thinking that Google Drive might be more user friendly for the less geeky of our parents (most of the moms, if not the dads), but I'll save everything in both places so I can use the Evernote shortcuts on my Android phone. I love that I can use those shortcuts on my phone, and use them to keep track of my son's summer activities as well as my mom's travel info (she's visiting from out of town and I have her itinerary, shuttle info, etc.) so I can get right to that info from the home screen of the phone.

Candice seems to be on top of the room mom situation, but basically, I will:

-organize classroom events, parties, and field trips

-keep a list of who signed up for what

-have moms sign up for everything from who is teaching the "art angels" program each month to what our teacher's wish list is and who is donating what

There is a lot of signing up for stuff...who is bringing cookies for the back to school get together, eg, and I am also investigating a couple of sign-up sites (signupgenius.com and volunteerspot.com) which are geared specifically toward that. The Google Drive version of these things are perfect for those moms who are also engineers and excel-sheet nuts -- not exactly our population. So I'll have to pull together a variety of resources, but as long as I have one site with links to everything (Google drive folder) and send emails to keep everyone in the loop on a regular basis, I think I can make this work for everyone with a child in my son's class.

I wish there were a way to have all of this in one place, including a page for photos of events...almost like facebook for room moms. But I don't have the time or expertise to start something like that. But I'm so glad to have found you guys! I could use the feedback and a place to share ideas as the year goes on. I'm really excited about being room mom this year, and as a geek, I am glad to have so many options.

Thanks!!!

Leslie