Looks Can be Deceiving: My Zoho Notebook Experience

So I've been messing around with several suggested Google Notebook Replacements. When I first saw the Zoho Notebook interface, a feeling much like you might see in those movies where a character has an epiphany and an angel chorus sings as divine light shines from behind some cloud enveloped me. It looked so much like the now stagnant Google Notebook (GN) that I couldn't help but immediately think I had found my replacement, and for a while, it was amazingly close to GN.

The FireFox extension is located in the same place as the GN extension (bottom right of browser). It also has a few features not in the GN extension, mostly dealing with creating new pages or notebooks, and text editing tools--neither of which were deal makers. However, it is not like GN in that you cannot use the extension if you are logged into your Zoho Notebook in another window/tab. This was a bit of a pain on occasion, and makes me wonder why this little complication even exists. This was strike one.

When it came to the actual notebook, the layout of the page is familiar at first. Check out this screen shot:

The middle column is where your web clippings appear, much like GN. You can move these around in the list by dragging and dropping. BUT, you can only do this within the list. You cannot move a clipping to another notebook or another page within a notebook with drag-and-drop. This lack of drag-and-drop with no readily handy alternative counts as a foul ball.

The second strike came when I didn't see anything in the way of adding sections within the notebook. Part of the draw of GN was being able to create sections within the clipping list. This was an easy way to visually separate clippings into categories without trouble and in view of other clippings. Simple, easy, and no extra clicks. Not so in Zoho. The closest thing to sections is called a page. You can't view pages together; rather, you must click on each page and you can only see one page at a time. While creating pages and saving to them is easy, rearranging clippings among pages take some doing. It also became a little frustrating to see a whole page created for maybe two entries when they could easily fit in line with another page. Tags might have been a work-around but that option too is missing (GN's version of tags is called labels--meaning you had two ways to categorize in the same interface).

Third strike was consistency issues. For some reason I could expand and collapse entries within one notebook, and in another notebook or page I could not. Length of a clipping and/or number of clippings on a page had nothing to do with the difference. Text was changed from one font to another in some places, retaining format from web page to notebook was hit or miss, and when I tried to use the add video/image options, I couldn't get either to work.

This wasn't my first experience with a Zoho app. I had experimented with its document and spreadsheet apps when I was checking where my students should start with web-based document authoring. However, if you check out Zoho, you'll see they have little apps for just about everything under the sun, just like Google has had. But Google seems to be trimming all sorts of things from its offerings to put more energy into fewer apps--and good, useful apps like Notebook, are left on the cutting-room floor. Zoho has so many apps that the diversity of focus is leaving apps like their Notebook unpolished--and others have blogged about twitches in other apps as well.

There might be some advantage to Zoho that none of the other contenders have to offer: integration within their span of web-based apps like Writer and Sheets. However, even if you're using different services from different providers, tabbed browsing and alt+tab make it pretty easy to switch between a Google doc and a Notefish notebook. And as I'm playing with other notebook offerings, I'm discovering that some play nice with Google services already.

So, I've decided that Zoho Notebook, while a good app, doesn't quite meet my needs.

Notefish Review

On January 17, I started looking for Google Notebook replacements. In a comment I found to one of the online articles I consulted was the suggestion of Notefish.

After registering for an account (easy), and downloading the FireFox extension (also easy), I started clipping.

The Notefish browser extension functions much like the Google Notebook browser extension: highlight the text/pictures you want to clip, right click, and Copy to Notefish. I set up multiple notebooks within Notefish. As a result, one thing was different about the clipping process in Notefish. Rather than automatically saving the clipping into the last opened notebook, as in Google Notebook, you have to choose which notebook in Notefish you would like the clipping to be saved. This was cool.

I then went to play with my clippings inside the notebooks. Dragging and dropping to organize clippings is more versatile WITHIN the Notefish notebook. Instead of a list, which is dictated in Google Notebook, I could move clippings all around the notebook: side-by-side, staggered side-by-side, in a list. I could also create sections within a notebook. Also interesting was the ability to resize individual clippings on the page.

You can also color-code clippings quite easily with the small toolbar that floats near the bottom-left of the notebook page. Tags are added by clicking on "Add Tags Now"; however, you can only add tags to an entire notebook rather than to each clipping within a notebook.

The trouble came when I tried to take a clip from one notebook and place it in another. Since Notefish doesn't have a list of your notebooks in a sidebar, like in Google Notebook, I couldn't drag and drop anything among notebooks. Thus, that little difference in the browser interface where you pick the notebook to save to is very, VERY important. There is a way to move clippings from one notebook to another, but it involves the following (not drag-and-drop): "Simply click on top of any of your notes, and a field on the bottom right corner of the screen will appear that reads 'Drop here to move to another project'. Simply drag and drop your notes into this area, and select the project to copy to."

My next problem came when I wanted to share my notebook. Rather than having the share options spelled out for you as in the Google Notebook, you have a box that asks if you would like to share the page, when you want it to expire, and a password protection. No info in the interface on how to get to this shared page to create a link to it in email or on a blog. Rather:
"Open your page, and click the 'Share' link at the top of the page page. You'll be able to make the page shared, create a password and set an expiration date. Once you've set your shared preferences, you can copy and paste the URL of this page into an email and send to others. Make sure you share the password with them, if you've set one." I had to go to the help page to find this information, which is fine for me. This may not be such a good thing for efficiency when teaching 25 7th graders how to use this service within a 65 minutes. With Google Notebook, the sharing options were very clear when you chose to share a page, so if they couldn't remember the directions, there was support within the page to jog their memories.

Altogether, I found Notefish a plain and simple notebook service. Not too far off from Google Notebook, with some better features. However, it lacks the smooth look and feel of Google Notebook, and the extra steps that limit true drag-and-drop among notebooks and the number of times you or students would need to access the help section for steps in a process (instead of gather information) concern me as far as on-page support that would lower the learning curve.

For now, I'm keeping Notefish as an option, but I still have more test-clipping to do with other services.

Good-bye Google Notebook, Hello What?

On the evening of January 14, the Google Notebook team posted this on the Official Google Notebook Blog:

"Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we'll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users. But don't fret, we'll continue to maintain service for those of you who've already signed up. As part of this plan, however, we will no longer support the Notebook Extension, but as always users who have already signed up will continue to have access to their data via the web interface at http://www.google.com/notebook."

I'm disappointed, and it seems I'm not the only one. 538 comments on the blog itself share my reaction, and many bloggers are also quite undone. I doubt such inter-web agitation will save Notebook from the cutting block, but at least we can start the grieving process. :)

What was great about Notebook was, first, that students didn't need another password or user name to access it and Google Docs.

Apart from that was its general ease of use. The browser extensions made it easy to highlight what you wanted from a website and just right-click it into a notebook. Once there, clips could be organized easily with drag-and-drop interface. You could organize clips in sections within a notebook, add comments and tags, and the sharing options were great: web page for links, RSS for a reader, and inviting viewers who didn't have a Google Account was quick and easy.

So, if they won't be offering this service to new users, I'll have to find something else for future students. Ergo, I'm actually using Google Notebook to find a replacement for Google Notebook. It's a little like having an employee train his/her replacement. This is what I've been up to in my spare time since Thursday evening.

So here are the candidates I've come across for a replacement. If you have more, please post in a comment and I'll give them a whirl:
Clipmarks
Diigo-testing now (1/16/09)
Evernote
Ma.gnolia-testing now (1/17/09)
Notefish-testing now (1/17/09)
Springnote
Ubernote
Zoho Notebook-testing now (1/16/09)

I've already discounted a couple of suggestions I've come across because they are primarily bookmarking sites, not actual notebooks in the sense of Google Notebook. These would include de.li.cious, digg, technorati, StumbleUpon, and reddit. Ma.gnolia has some features more like Notebook, so I'm going to try that out. Diigo is trying to add more Notebook like options in their primarily social bookmarking site. I've also discounted Furl because you have to have Furl to share Furl as easily as one could share in Notebook--and it's mostly about save whole pages rather than parts of pages. This may also be what will knock Diigo out of the running, even though you can highlight what you would have clipped in Notebook.

I'll try to share my findings as I find them. :)
Here are some articles that might help you if you're also looking for a replacement:
Seven Worthy Notebook Replacements (CNet News)
Free Tech for Teachers: Choosing a Google Notebook Replacement

Side note: I have seen many comments made by company reps of several of the aforementioned services posted in response to several blogs and articles. If you happen by my little offering to the blogosphere, don't come with that business busy language. I don't want anything robust solutionish except for coffee nor do other euphemistic noun phrases mean much in my book. What I do want is a way to clip easily what I want to clip in a web-based application that has a low learning curve and at least an equivalent of drag-and-drop organization. Oh yeah, free is good. Ask yourself if a 7th grader with hormonal imbalances and a history of little or no computer access could learn your service and use it in 20 minutes or less. If you think your service can do THAT, then I'll take you seriously. :)

Say Goodbye to SASIxp

One thing that has been constant, no matter where I've taught, has been SASIxp. In fact, I have never taken attendance on anything else since I've been teaching. So I was a little surprised when I had heard a rumor that SBISD was going to drop SASI next year. But you know how the old game of gossip goes--by the time the message gets to you, it is usually wrong.

Then, this morning, I came across a little article by Chris Riedel. Seems there may be some truth to the rumors, though "dropping SASI" may not actually be the case. Rather, SASI is running out of time. Without actually saying it in plain English, Pearson will no longer support SASIxp after 2012.

"Over the next two years, Pearson will migrate schools from the SASI platform over to PowerSchool Premier, with scheduling designed to fit individual school district needs. To aid in the transition, Pearson's Product Education team has released a series of courses to provide SASI users with the information necessary to make the move to PowerSchool Premier."

According to a press release issued in June, Pearson is going to upgrade everyone to this web-based PowerSchool Premier through a program Pearson is calling its SASI Customer First Program, wherein existing SASI license owners will transition to the new system free of charge.

When I Googled PowerSchool, I found something very interesting. Apparently, Pearson bought the PowerSchool division of Apple--you know, the iPhone, iPod, iCan'tRememberThemAll people--back in 2006. But what was also VERY interesting is that the plan then was to provide content compatible with--yes, you guessed it--the iPod. From the press release:
“Pearson will also develop new services for educators and students, including research-based educational content compatible with iPod, the world’s most popular digital music player. Teachers will have access to podcasts on professional development to help with lesson preparation and provide innovative ways to reach students struggling with specific content. Students will be able to load their iPods with study guides that are aligned with Pearson texts and listen to review notes to prepare for exams.”

If you would like to see what PowerSchool looks like, take the tour (a little boring--especially with all those nouns-to-adjectives and vice versa-functionality, paramount, robustifaction, etc.). You'll notice that the demo is run on a Mac.

HearWho.com: Convert Text into an Audio MP3 file

http://www.hearwho.com/

Hearwho is a neat, FREE service where you can cut and paste text into a box and then they convert it to an audio file. Just enter the text in the box then decide if you want a male or female voice, the language (English or Spanish), and the quality (which will affect the size of the audio file and time it will take to convert to MP3) and click Start Conversion.

HearWho will convert the text into MP3 file of your document. You'll get your file pretty quickly, but if their server is busy, it may take a couple of minutes.

You can then load your MP3 file onto any music player, or burn it to a CD. While the voice is computerized, it isn't too bad.

If you need a way to quickly get a portion of a book or article to audio for a struggling reader or ESL or SpEd student, this service may be helpful to you.

Vegas has schools too, ya know.

I've been doing summer work for Abydos Learning/New Jersey Writing Project in Texas for about six years. Most of that work has always been in the Houston area, and a couple of times I've been to other parts of the state. In May, I was asked to go to Las Vegas, Nevada, to do three days of professional development about reading and writing instruction. Talk about outside of my comfort zone! At first, I must admit that I was a little surprised that Las Vegas had schools. I had never been to Vegas, so everything I knew of it was from the commercials. However, all those hotels and casinos need people to work in them, and some of them have kids who need to go to school. When you're caught up in the tourist idea of Vegas, you don't think much about everything past Las Vegas Boulevard.

So, for three days this past week, I did professional development for Clark County School District in a casino/convention center for about 100 middle school teachers. The Clark County public school system is the 5th largest in the nation. In fact, 9 of 10 students in Nevada attend a Clark County school. Even though Las Vegas is 1200 miles away, when I had a chance to talk to teachers, it was clear that many of the we're facing many of the same challenges. And in some ways, we have it a little better here.

While I was there, I watched the local news when getting ready each morning. I learned, for instance, that there are 41 foreclosures a DAY in Las Vegas. Keep in mind that Las Vegas is the 25th largest city in the US (about 1/2 million people). Imagine for a second having no clue how many students may or may not show up for the new year when so many are losing their homes. The problem is so great that many schools don't know whether they should hire any new teachers, especially if foreclosures continue at this rate. Also think about the main income source for most public schools: property taxes. Image what would happen if the houses in a district had been appraised in the hundreds of thousands one year, and then suddenly the values were 1/2 or more lower the next year? Talk about a budget cut! It's amazing to me that only four years ago, there was actually a housing shortage in Clark County. Today, even the poshest of gated communities aren't immune to unsold and foreclosed homes.

After only three days, one thing was clear: we're all in this together. Rising levels of students who speak a language other than English, drop-outs, and the ongoing challenges of more and more emphasis on standardized testing are just as real to Clark County teachers as they are to us in the Houston area.

So, the next time you're venting about the challenges facing public school teachers and students, I ask that you expand your meaning of the word "we" to include the many teachers and students throughout the country who, while miles and states apart, are in the same boat--even those in the glitziest desert in the world.

Another Reason for Social Networking: Affirmation

Some teacher friends of mine encouraged me to join Facebook. So about 3 days ago, I did. On the second day, one of my former 8th graders from my group of students in 2001-02 found me, and by about 11pm today (Friday, July 18), 21 of my students from that group had requested to be my "friend" on facebook.

The reason I'm sharing this is because there have been times as a teacher when I've been discouraged and wondered if anything I did really mattered. Well, if I ever get to feeling that way again, all I need to do is look at my facebook because what my students remember from that year we shared as a class and where they are now will definitely pick up my spirits!

So far, all but one of them is in college (which still surprises me given the demographics of that school). Four of them are studying at UT, seven are at SHSU. Most of the rest are at U of H or in a community college. One of my former students is studying at YALE, and one will be graduating from West Point next year. The most surprising: one of them has already become a deep-sea welder and is working in NORWAY! Just this sort of info makes my day, but when they leave messages about the things we did or the stories we read or how they still like to read a certain author, I can't tell you how much it means to me.

I grew up in a small town, so keeping up with students was easy for my teachers because they could just chat up your mother at the grocery store. Since I've been teaching in the "big city," and at campuses with high mobility, information about former students has been pretty much non-existent for me. And since I haven't taught in the same district the whole time, the chances that I would hear about one of my former students was nil. I think a lot of teachers in big, urban districts miss this sort of continuity with students after they leave their campuses, and I think the part of the price for working in such a setting over time is that we never really get to see where our work ends up, or what impact we've had. While I don't think it would be a good idea to become "friends" with a student currently at my campus (and I have reservations about friending students still in the same school system), having contact with former students who have left the system has been a real joy that will likely inspire me to keep my chin up when the stress and hard work get to me.

It's amazing to me how quickly my former students found me. Maybe you have former students who are looking for you. We all know one thing--a little affirmation goes a long way. :)