Evernote
Evernote is intuitive and easy to use. The search feature is great because it looks at the contents in all of my notebooks simultaneously and highlights the searched term in each document like a CTRL+F search.
Another cool feature is that my tags are automatically organized like entries in an index.
Zotero
I had dabbled in Zotero before but recalled that it functioned best in conjunction with Firefox. I mainly use Chrome, so that was a drawback. However, Rosie Castle alerted me to a new Chrome extension that makes it easier to save PDFs and webpages from Chrome.
Zotero is commonly used by college librarians to teach citations. I teach my students about using Creative Commons licensed images which we use a lot in student projects but citing them is laborious. I found a YouTube video (created by a librarian!) that shows how to quickly save an image to Zotero then drag the description into a word processing document where it magically transforms into a citation. To choose the citation style (MLA, APA, etc.) in Zotero go to Settings>Preferences>Export. This works with both Microsoft Word and a Google Document!
How will I use them in the future?
As part of another professional development opportunity (Cool Tools for School), I read an ALA Technology report about how librarians are using curation tools to teach critical thinking. Students think critically as they gather and filter information sources for research. So, I might try using Evernote with upper level students. I think that Zotero may be a little advanced for my K-6 students.
Personally, I think that I will use Evernote as my primary curation tool but use Zotero for research purposes so that I can easily cite sources and create a bibliography.
