metacognition and evernote

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Running Head: METACOGNITION AND EVERNOTE Metacognition and Evernote Armen J. Chakmakjian Bentley University

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AbstractThis paper starts with a brief description of the research into metacognition. The paper then turns to learning styles and how Evernote is designed with cues that may help it to be learned as a tool. Assuming that the user gains some facility with Evernote, the paper then studies features of Evernote that help with foraging for and refinement of the data that the user has stored in it. The paper is auto-didactic for the writer since Evernote was used to gather and organize the information to write this report. The paper concludes that although Evernote does provide some learning style support for learners that prefer visual and kinesthetic learning styles, it has features on the iPad version that are presented without context. The paper also concludes with the finding that Evernote’s style of notebook and tagging support allows users to sort and find data in their research goals in a metacognitively personal and efficient way.

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Page 1: Metacognition and Evernote

Running Head: METACOGNITION AND EVERNOTE

Metacognition and Evernote

Armen J. Chakmakjian

Bentley University

Page 2: Metacognition and Evernote

METACOGNITION AND EVERNOTE 2

Abstract

This paper starts with a brief description of the research into metacognition. The paper

then turns to learning styles and how Evernote is designed with cues that may help it to be

learned as a tool. Assuming that the user gains some facility with Evernote, the paper then studies

features of Evernote that help with foraging for and refinement of the data that the user has stored

in it. The paper is auto-didactic for the writer since Evernote was used to gather and organize the

information to write this report. The paper concludes that although Evernote does provide some

learning style support for learners that prefer visual and kinesthetic learning styles, it has features

on the iPad version that are presented without context. The paper also concludes with the finding

that Evernote’s style of notebook and tagging support allows users to sort and find data in their

research goals in a metacognitively personal and efficient way.

Page 3: Metacognition and Evernote

METACOGNITION AND EVERNOTE 3

Metacognition and Evernote

Humans have the ability to monitor their thinking process and this led to Flavell’s 1976

widely accepted definition of the word metacognition of his work Metacognitive aspects of

problem solving: “Metacognition” refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive

processes...” (as cited by Garofalo & Lester, 1985). This paper starts with a brief description of

the research into metacognition. The paper discusses learning styles and how Evernote is

designed with cues that may help it to be learned by an user. The paper then studies features of

Evernote that help with foraging for and refinement of the data that the user has stored in it. The

research finds that Evernote does provide some learning style support for learners that prefer

visual and kinesthetic learning styles, but it also has features on the iPad version that are

presented without any context. The paper also offers that Evernote’s style of notebook and

tagging support can allow a student or research user goals to sort and retrieve data to support

information foraging efficiency. The paper is auto-didactic for the author since Evernote was used

to gather and organize the information to write this report.

Metacognition

The concept of metacognition tells us that humans consciously evaluate their thinking

processes and performs subsequent regulation of that process. (Shimamura, 2000) An example of

this evaluation would be hearing what someone else just said, but then having a feeling that you

did not understand the meaning of what they said. Regulation would cause you to ask them to

repeat it to make sure that you understand. (Flavell, 1979) The components of metacognition are

knowledge and memory about the world around a person and then a person’s knowledge that they

have the ability to amend that knowledge and to learn. (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters &

Afflerbach, 2006). Amending knowledge requires a human to select goals, assess their

achievement against those goals, adopt new tactics for achieving them and sometimes abandoning

a goal. (Hobbs & Gordon, 2006)

The research in this area also shows that the ability to think about what a person knows

seems to develop, maximize and decline in different areas over time. Flavell cites research that

showed that young children were very limited in their ability to think about their thoughts and

memories. (Flavell, 1979) Myers and Paris’ research study showed that when second graders

were asked about what they had read, they focused on exact recall rather than use strategies to get

at the deeper meaning. In fact, the younger children seemed to think that reading aloud was more

efficient than silent reading because they equated the task of reading to the assigned task of

understanding. That research also showed that by the sixth grade, children had acquired better

skills. (Myers & Paris, 1978).

A broad age-related study shows that strategy detection in computational problems has

low accuracy during adolescence, increases in early adulthood, peaks in middle age and declines

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in the elderly. This same study showed that while computational power declined in folks older

that sixty, their ability to solve human-relations problems was strongest. (Vukman, 2005) It could

be inferred here that in the area of human-relations the elderly have the widest level of

experiences and strategies to draw on. That being said, there is some question in the research as to

whether affective or emotional dimensions are part of metacognition or a separate function of

self-regulation and coping that arise during learning. (Vermunt, 1996) Flavell separated

metacognitive knowledge from metacognitive experience, the latter corresponding to affective

learning. (Flavell, 1979) Emotion can support or sustain learning, but a learner with high

metacognitive knowledge but unable to control their emotions, in other words apply self-

regulation, might not be able to changes their beliefs and learn. (McCormick, 2003, p. 81)

Learning Styles

There seems to be ample research that there are categories of learning that are effective

for different people. There are possibly 70 competing models of learning styles. (Boström, &

Lassen, 2006). The Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic model (i.e. the VAK model) is not a learning

style per se, but is a way of grouping learning categories based on the human observation

channels. The VAK model includes visual (verbal and non-verbal), auditory, and kinesthetic.

(Kanninen, 2008) Each learner has a preferred style (Kanninen, 2008) and a mature learner will

express his or her preferences if asked. (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer & Bjork, 2008) However,

Pashler et al. point out in their research that providing specific and direct instructions based on

that expressed preference has not yet been systematically and experimentally proven. They posit

subject preference may not actually conform to actual aptitude in that area.

It is notable that in 70 or so frameworks, some add in tactile input as part of

metacognition separately, so for instance VAK to call it VAKT (Kanninen, 2008). It is also

notable that olfactory learning, such as learning to identify odors without the help of other

cognitive cues has been a particularly troubling area for cognitive researchers. (Jönsson, 2005).

Learning Styles and Learning Evernote

For the purposes of this discussion, this study will assume a modern technology savvy

student as a persona who would use an information aggregator tool of some complexity. Evernote

is a relatively sophisticated tool that will require mature metacognitive abilities in the user,

including an extremely good understanding of their own aptitude in learning. The student will

have a mobile device, possibly several, including a pad, phone and laptop. The student is assumed

to have a fundamental understanding that information can be stored locally on a device as well as

“in the cloud”. Jonassen and Reeves point out that an insightful approach to investigating human

behavior is to study the kinds of tools that they discover, create or modify. Going beyond simple

machines to general purpose computing, the tools of the modern age are powerful without

necessarily having a physical presence in the users immediate environment. (Jonassen & Reeves,

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2000) Storage in the cloud is a metaphor for this and Evernote is a tangible example of this

metaphor in action.

Evernote is a set of tools that is specifically designed to help the user easily store

information for later retrieval. (Evernote, 2012) The student will initially act as if the information

that they have stored in the Evernote product is in the device itself. Figure 1 shows an example of

a fully loaded home screen on the application with the information that the student has entered on

that device. Using the VAK model, we will analyze how the student may have loaded Evernote

with that data while learning how to use it.

Visual learners prefer or may be better at learning through drawings, pictures, and other

image-rich cues. (Tanner & Allen 2004) The Evernote iPad app is rich with visual controls such

as the buttons with metaphorically familiar pictograms on the top right of Figure 1. On the top is

an icon that is an image of a document with a “+” superimposed on it. Just below it, an icon that

is a camera is another familiar symbol. Below that is an icon that is unfamiliar and will have to be

learned. Whichever the user selects they will invoke functionality that allows them to capture and

store information on the device for later retrieval. Tapping the document+ icon opens a familiar,

if simple, document editor page. The student may start typing at this point and wish to save that

information. When the student hits the close button at the top of the page, they are returned to the

main page and in the “recent notes” area of the screen to the right of the document+ icon, they

will receive feedback that their new document was successfully saved, a metacognitive event.

One thing of note, document editing has a close button at the top which is different than for the

next operation – Pictures.

If the student taps the photo icon, they will invoke the familiar iPad camera function. In

order to snap off the picture, a camera icon at the middle right edge is tapped. At this point the

Figure 1:Evernote Ipad App

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user has several choices. They can take more photos or they can press one of two icons at the

bottom of the screen. On the bottom left, an “X” is available and assumed to cancel some

operation. Pressing this will bring up a modal pop-up letting the user know that they will lose all

pictures in the session if they confirm the cancellation. Assuming the user would like to save the

photo, they tap cancel and the user is back to the camera screen. The user will note that there is an

icon with a check at the bottom right. This is apparently the save button and oddly, this is blue

which may not catch the users attention at first glance. Tapping it will return the user to the main

screen. In a second or two, the photos snapped off will appear in the previously mentioned recent

list carousel.

The next icon down is more problematic. It appears to have a “g” in it in a place where a

page rubric letter might appear, indicating a document of some sort. Tapping this choice opens up

a camera screen that is similar to the other camera operations except that it has margins

superimposed on it. This function turns out to be a special page capture feature developed by

Evernote to be used with special physical notebooks and colored tabs to create written page

notebooks based on the tab color on the page. There is no way any new user will figure out what

this function is without some sort of prompt and none is provided. Since it acts similarly to the

functionality behind the camera icon, they will be confused.

Evernote has some interesting screen manipulations. For example, the 4 green bars in

Figure 1 with the labels All Notes, Notebooks, Tags, and Places open to expose notes that are

contained in them. These movements of screen objects somewhat stretch the definition of

kinesthetic learning, except to the extent that the people who learn using the kinesthetic learning

style tend to learn best through feeling and experimenting with physical manipulation of

themselves and objects in their environment. (Kanninen, 2008) After several notes have been

entered and the user feels successful, the user may decide to see if older notes might be off the

screen in the recent note carousel. The user may attempt a common iPad style movement to swipe

the recent notes with a finger and they will see other notes brought to focus.

The Evernote iPad app provides some visual and kinesthetic cues that can be used for

learning how to use Evernote as a tool. However, Evernote on the iPad does require the user to be

a relatively sophisticated iPad user with the willingness to experiment with metaphorically

unfamiliar features and provides no local help or cues. Finally, while audio files can be stored in

Evernote, it does not use auditory cues to enhance learnability in the iPad app (nor in any of its

other device and web apps) consistent with the “A” in the VAK model. The next section will

address how a student who has gained facility with Evernote, might use it to collect and organize

information in a goal-oriented fashion in conjunction with their existing metacognitive abilities.

Journaling, Organization and Searching in Evernote

Evernote is presented in the metaphor of a journal of collected information. This

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information is important to the user to achieve specific goals or for general interest. A research

study of nurses and learning showed that journaling sessions increased the critical thinking skills

of nurses, especially those with experience. The study showed an increase in thinking in referent

nouns. (Kuiper, 2002) Using Evernote to create documents that are notes taken while listening in

class, reflecting on learning or doing research seems like a goal-oriented task consistent with

metacognition. However, mere editing of information is not a compelling reason to use Evernote.

Evernote answers this by giving the student the ability to search through their information.

Assuming that the user has now stored a substantial amount of information in Evernote,

the student will need to find specific information. They will at first look through note titles and

skim thumbnails. This method will prove cumbersome if the student has taken copious notes.

Their next attempt at finding a specific piece of information will make them employ the search

box at the top right (See Figure 1). The search provided in Evernote is a simple text search that

highlights hits of each word in the search context. If the user searched for “metacognitive search”

a filtered list of those notes that satisfied the equation –“metacognitive” or “search” - would

appear on the left side of the iPad app. They would have to now serially go through the articles

looking for the entry of interest, a somewhat inefficient process looking to be enhanced.

Bowlers 2009 research study of teens looked for ways to support their own knowledge

construction even as they searched for information. In that study it was suggested the need for

library services that enable open-ended discovery, interactive learning, and personalized

knowledge organization services. (Bowler, 2009) Evernote provides a feature called tagging,

which is essentially user-defined classification. In a 2007 study of photo tagging on the Internet,

it was found that users tagged things for personal reasons in order to add context and for

remembering details about the photographs in the future. (Ames & Naaman, 2007). In essence,

photo taggers are attempting to use the tags as annotation for efficient contextual search.

The student would see that each note header had a “tag” field in which they can type in a

word or a series of words that have some meaning to them. When they tap return, the word or

phrase that they type in is encircled graphically and they will recognize that have created a tag.

Any note can have multiple tags. The user may also have noticed that the tag area in the left panel

would be updated with the word(s) that they used as a tag(s) and a number. Over time, if the user

used that tag again, that number would increase and would be a signal to the student that they

have successfully added a note to a tag. In research by Voss, tagging information requires

conceptual analysis, deciding what is relevant, translation, deciding on an appropriate term, and

feedback, which allows the user to evaluate how good their tags are. (Voss, 2007) This feedback

in the personal arena is the success of subsequent searches using the tags, Voss points out that

vocabulary control is important to subsequent success. Evernote assumes nothing in this area, but

it can be extrapolated that the user needs to use tags judiciously to enhance their efficiency.

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Finally, the user may employ a different feature of Evernote in order to organize their

collected content. Notebooks in Evernote are a contextual feature by which the user groups sets of

notes if they find it desirable to maintain the metaphor of a notebook for each topic. A student

taking multiple research classes may create a notebook for each class and this sorting and

categorization of gathered information is similar to physical notebooks. This kind of conceptual

binning is important for students to develop, and research has been done that shows that when

students learn how to bin information into journals using their own categorization, they begin to

think independently and at higher levels of cognition. (Edwards, 1991) The ability to sort the

information at entry action into notebooks, as in Edwards’ research, is a desirable support of

metacognitive function in Evernote.

Summary

This paper began with a brief definition of metacognition and then described two aspects

of metacognition: learning styles and information foraging support. The paper then evaluated

Evernote, the cloud based journaling tool against support of learning styles for the user to gain

facility in the product suite. The paper then showed how Evernote’s tagging and notebook

features enhanced the student users ability to sort and refine information that they have been

gathering for a goal based task in a metacognitively personal and efficient way.

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References

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mobile and online media. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in

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strategies and meta-cognition. Education+ Training, 48(2/3), 178-189.

Bowler, L. (2010). A taxonomy of adolescent metacognitive knowledge during the

information search process. Library & information science research, 32(1), 27-42.

Edwards, P. R. (1992). Using Dialectical Journals to Teach Thinking Skills.Journal of

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Evernote, Retrieved on November 11, 2012 from http://www.evernote.com/corp

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