10 Apps for Students to Take Notes

As schools and districts move towards "1 to 1" and to "Bring Your Own Devices," the process of taking notes will take on a new meaning.  It the past couple years, for me personally, it has gotten to a point where writing for very long makes my hand hurt because I don't use a pen or pencil very often anymore.  While attending Master's classes and Professional Development meetings, I have started using my laptop and iPad to take notes.  I have a feeling this will become the trend in future years in education.  As we move towards this, it will be important that students have a functioning way of categorizing and keeping notes organized.  Here is a list of ten possible tools.

Evernote - A staple among educators and almost a necessity for me these days; Evernote provides users the ability to take notes, save images, and other documents, as well as record audio to go along with your notes.  For a lecture, this would make a great tool for students in the classroom.  Evernote, like most of the apps I will share provides users the ability to share notes as well.  This could be handy for teachers and students working on a group project.  Evernote is available for desktops, mobile and tablet devices.

Google Docs - A lot of schools have gone to Google as their choice for spreadsheets, word documents, and presentation tools.  Google Docs provides great note taking opportunities and also makes is easy to share notes among other users.  It is also available for mobile and tablet devices and notes are stored in the cloud for access anywhere.

Fetchnotes - More of a to do App, but does allow users the ability to take longer notes as well.  One sets it apart is the ability to apply hashtags to your notes for organizing them.  This would be a helpful addition to labeling notes as you go and easily categorizing them as well.  Fetchnotes is available for both Android and Apple devices.

Jjot is another web app option that allows users to take notes in a post-it type format and makes the notes available from any computer.  The notes can easily be shared and printed.  It allows user to bold and bullet a list and each note can have a unique URL.

Listhings is a cork board type notebook app that allows users to create notes and share them with ease.  Not necessarily meant for longer note taking, but does provide the space if desired.  Notes are stored in the cloud and therefore area available from any computer.

Penzu - More like a journal, but when taking notes, organizing by date is very important.  Penzu is an app that users can use to take notes and then easily share them with other students or teachers.  You can also get Android and Apple version of the app for mobile devices.




Simplenote is an app that makes taking notes...well, simple.  Notes can be found on the web, desktop or on a mobile device.  Search tools and tagging make it easy to organize and find your notes.  Like other note taking apps, it also allows users to share their notes, making collaboration even easier.

 Quicklyst - A note taking app that helps users create outline style notes in a structure that helps with organization and understanding of those notes.  Available for use on all devices and requires email and a password to get started.  What sets it apart is the ability to include formatted mathematical equations.

Workflowy - Another option for creating an outline style of notes and also viewing those notes in an easy way.  Email and password are required for use and contains a lot of the other features note taking apps provide, but like Quicklyst, is an app for creating outline/list style notes. 

Notes.io is a simple, no sign-up required note taking app that allows users to easily type notes, then share them with a simple URL.  Currently, printing, attaching, and sending directly are in the works to improve this service even more.