Evernote Review

I did not use Evernote. I attempted to use it at the beginning of the year but the app was so unorganized and hard to use that it was more of a hassle than a benefit. I don't like typing or reading on the iPad, it gives me a migraine if I used it for to long. The Evernote app was difficult to use and it frustrated me how i could not move my documents to different folders. At home the website wouldn't load 50% of the time. I would have no notes from an entire section the day before a test, leaving me with nothing to study. I would have liked it if Evernote had connected to Dropbox. Then I could have dropped my notes into Dropbox, and accessed them easier at home. Dropbox is much more efficient and organized. If the font size was larger on Evernote, I could actually read the notes that I am taking and my headaches would not be as bad. There was no tab button so my paragraphs ran together and this really frustrated me. Nothing was labeled so all the keys above were a mystery and had little to no use for me. Evernote has great potential, there are just some kinks that need to be worked out.

iPad Review

The iPad benefited the Honors American Literature class this year in several ways. The biggest benefit would be the ability to access information at the tip of our fingers. From vocabulary to themes, the iPad provided another view of the information and the ability to research it further then out class discussions. When studying the Harlem Renaissance our assignment was to find a poem that was written by a poet during that time. Looking up the poems right in the class speeds up the process of assignments and eliminates most of our homework by changing it to in class assignments. Being able to google things during class discussions adds to the discussions we have, and makes them so much more in-depth. Even for projects, the iPad offered so many new possibilities instead of doing the usual Powerpoint Presentation. I changed my projects from the boring format of Powerpoint to a more interactive presentation device, Prezi. The iPad broke creative boundaries for projects that we as a class never though existed. One of the draw backs of having the iPad for me was that I have trouble typing one it. The The auto-correct option frustrates me to no end. It would change words even when they weren't spelled incorrectly. The other problem was that the iPads were not allowed out of the school. If the project I was working on was started during class, it would be hard to continue working on it at home. With the projects only being worked on at school, the process was extremely drawn out. however, minus the few set backs, the iPads really made the class better. I think every class should get a set of iPads. Even though projects would take longer then if we all had an iPad, there are more benefits that out way this small problem. It would put Grosse Pointe South into a new era, making us more advanced than many schools in the district. Students that are trusted by their teachers should be allowed to take the iPads home. Some students may mistreat the property. Text books could be put on the iPad, decreasing the amount that students have to carry back and forth from school to home. Class iPads would make class projects easier in in many subjects. The limitations of the library would be broken, there would be no need to make dates to visit the library. All the information would be at your finger tips.