For our final week for the OneNote series, we are looking at examples of how teachers can use OneNote in the classroom and even for their personal organization. In Digital Learning, we have 5 separate Notebooks that we use to keep each other up to date on meetings, information that needs to be shared, tracking of concerns, trainings that we have done, and so much more. For us, the ability to keep all the projects we are working on in one place has been awesome! OneNote also works well within Schoology.  

Let’s take a look at ways teachers have used OneNote. 

On Microsoft’s education website, they have a few articles talking about Best Uses. I’m not going to rehash the whole article, but I am going to point out a few of the top 10 best uses that I liked. The author mentions presenting content (better than having students copy notes and not listen to what is being taught), Digital Inking (the writing with the pen in the notebook) and tagging. I really haven’t mentioned this much but you have the ability to tag your notes with keywords that are searchable. Using keywords throughout OneNote you will be able to find vital information faster. 

Other teachers have mentioned creating linked outlines for students. Instead of giving the students everything, they can go into the content library and click on the things that they need more help with, helping them create their own understanding. Another teacher mentioned clipping information from the internet and loading that information directly to the notebook. Another teacher mentioned going to webpages, using the print screen (CTRL-P) to select Send to OneNote to send a document to OneNote.  

One teacher was blown away with the Math Ink Tool. This tool allows the user to solve simple or complex math equations. The user can get a step-by-step explanation on how to solve the equation. Then, by using Artificial Intelligence, the user can make a practice quiz in Microsoft Forms using variations of the equation. 

Teachercast hosted a podcast that discussed OneNote by teachers from a bunch of different blogs. They also reiterated the inking capability of OneNote and the easy homework tracking and scoring. They actually talked about how to use it to let everyone know what is going on in the school.  

Common Sense Media has a great review with a lot of teacher notes about using the software and how they are seeing the benefits. The reviews are generally positive with a 4-star average (out of 5). 
This is a link to an article on how OneNote changed this first-grade teachers life. A little dramatic but still an informative article with how you can use OneNote with first graders.  

Finally, a place you can go to find out more information about OneNote is OneNoteforTeachers.com. This site walks you through not just the setup but also examples of use in the classroom.

That’s it for this series of blogs! Look out for an post closer to when school starts about Class Notebook and OneNote updates. Did I miss something you love about OneNote? Did you miss the previous OneNote and Class Notebook posts? Send me a quick note in the comments below and I will make a mention of it in the future either here or on the Podcast.