Keep, for Just about Everything
As one of the proud nerds who started using Keep for her shared grocery list way back in 2013
(eons ago by tech standards), I was not surprised when Keep showed up in the Google Apps for Education suite. It surely belongs there! It’s a veritable Swiss Army knife of an app, and educators will find it handy. Be sure to get the mobile app. That’s where most of the power of this application reside.
What is Keep? Unironically enough, it is used for keeping stuff. While Drive is a storage place for all things Google, Keep is a storage place for all things, period. If you have something you know you want to have accessible but you don’t know where to put it, Keep is your app. Chrome users will notice the Keep icon in its new place of residence: the right-hand side bar. Along with Calendar and Tasks, Chrome lets you open the app in a number of other applications, simplifying access to the items you store there.
Teachers crave organization. In Keep you can color-code notes, pin notes to the top, and label everything. Labels function like folders, so you won’t be overwhelmed by clutter. Additionally, Keep includes a pretty amazing reminder feature that lets you set reminders by time and by place, as in, “When I get to Trader Joe's, remind me to buy sauvignon blanc.”
Here is my list of Top 5 Things Teachers Can Do with Keep:
5. Take photos. Use Keep to take photos of important paper documents that you don’t want to carry around with you, but you might like to reference while you’re busy teaching and living life. Examples: weather codes for your school system, classroom phone number list for your school, business cards, picture of a post-it note with your member ID number written on it, picture of a recipe for playdough, photo of a receipt for a school-related purchase, photo of the wall sign with the hours at the city recreation center, etc.
4. Draw. On a mobile device, you can make a quick drawing with a finger or a stylus. Keep offers three different pen choices and a bunch of colors. Insert a grid to get lines to write on or guides for drawing. Now you’ve got a hand-drawn image that you can drop into a Slides presentation or doc, or send it in a text message or email.
3. Make audio notes. Not only does Keep record your voice and make an MP3 file, but it also transcribes the text of your audionote. On the mobile app, click the microphone in Keep and start talking. The transcript of your dictation will automatically appear below the note.
2. Research. If like many teachers, you are working on your next higher ed degree, use Google Keep to conduct your research and keep everything together in one place. Interview your principal and take notes in Keep, take a photo, make an audio note, take photos of quotations from books and journals, create a list of Internet resources to look at later while you’re getting the oil changed in your car, and even dictate your introduction in the middle of night by grabbing your phone and opening Keep. Label it all in Keep, where it will live in one tidy location until you are ready to write your paper or create your presentation. Of course students, too, can use Keep for their research projects or other project-based learning goals.
1. Convert photos to editable text! This is by far the coolest trick that Keep does. If you have a paper document that you want to make editable, Keep will actually convert the text. Here is my video how-to. Take a picture of the paper document in Keep or add the picture from your camera roll. Click the three dots in the lower part of the note and select Grab Image Text. Wait a few seconds, and, voila! The text appears in the note. Like with all OCR software, there’s a little clean up to do, but certainly faster than any typist I know.
I use Keep both personally and professionally and Google makes it easy to slip back and forth between accounts. The grocery list feature has gotten even better since 2013. It makes suggestions as you type, so making that shared grocery list is easier than ever. Get Keep wherever you get your mobile apps. You will love it!
What is Keep? Unironically enough, it is used for keeping stuff. While Drive is a storage place for all things Google, Keep is a storage place for all things, period. If you have something you know you want to have accessible but you don’t know where to put it, Keep is your app. Chrome users will notice the Keep icon in its new place of residence: the right-hand side bar. Along with Calendar and Tasks, Chrome lets you open the app in a number of other applications, simplifying access to the items you store there.
Teachers crave organization. In Keep you can color-code notes, pin notes to the top, and label everything. Labels function like folders, so you won’t be overwhelmed by clutter. Additionally, Keep includes a pretty amazing reminder feature that lets you set reminders by time and by place, as in, “When I get to Trader Joe's, remind me to buy sauvignon blanc.”
Here is my list of Top 5 Things Teachers Can Do with Keep:
5. Take photos. Use Keep to take photos of important paper documents that you don’t want to carry around with you, but you might like to reference while you’re busy teaching and living life. Examples: weather codes for your school system, classroom phone number list for your school, business cards, picture of a post-it note with your member ID number written on it, picture of a recipe for playdough, photo of a receipt for a school-related purchase, photo of the wall sign with the hours at the city recreation center, etc.
3. Make audio notes. Not only does Keep record your voice and make an MP3 file, but it also transcribes the text of your audionote. On the mobile app, click the microphone in Keep and start talking. The transcript of your dictation will automatically appear below the note.
2. Research. If like many teachers, you are working on your next higher ed degree, use Google Keep to conduct your research and keep everything together in one place. Interview your principal and take notes in Keep, take a photo, make an audio note, take photos of quotations from books and journals, create a list of Internet resources to look at later while you’re getting the oil changed in your car, and even dictate your introduction in the middle of night by grabbing your phone and opening Keep. Label it all in Keep, where it will live in one tidy location until you are ready to write your paper or create your presentation. Of course students, too, can use Keep for their research projects or other project-based learning goals. 1. Convert photos to editable text! This is by far the coolest trick that Keep does. If you have a paper document that you want to make editable, Keep will actually convert the text. Here is my video how-to. Take a picture of the paper document in Keep or add the picture from your camera roll. Click the three dots in the lower part of the note and select Grab Image Text. Wait a few seconds, and, voila! The text appears in the note. Like with all OCR software, there’s a little clean up to do, but certainly faster than any typist I know.
I use Keep both personally and professionally and Google makes it easy to slip back and forth between accounts. The grocery list feature has gotten even better since 2013. It makes suggestions as you type, so making that shared grocery list is easier than ever. Get Keep wherever you get your mobile apps. You will love it!
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