OneNote to rule them all and in the darkness bind them...

The OneNote. If you thought the One Ring was badass then you have not been living. OneNote – the dream collaboration tool for teachers. Ok it’s not the newest tool on the block but when it comes free with the Microsoft 365 package, you’d be a fool not to take note of it. With the growing use of technology in the classroom, OneNote is an excellent tool for teachers to use a collaboration space for students to upload articles, documents, links and so forth. Sick of photocopying a million practice exam papers or just feeling like a greenie? Upload it on OneNote. Students missing out on the lesson? Upload it one OneNote. Want students to bring the resource you handed out yesterday with them? Upload it on OneNote.

                                       

Sure we haven’t got to the stage yet where we don’t need paper but OneNote is a sure as Pikachu way to save some! All of my classes have an OneNote folder which makes planning and teaching a dream compared to having bits of paper floating around the classroom and coming out of students books. The beauty of OneNote is that you have separate folders within the folder, and can add pages within the pages of these folders. The sky is the limit. The Collaboration Space is a great tool to use when you are wanting students to share notes with each other or you have questions that you want the whole class to answer and have those answers displayed to everyone. The Content Library is teacher controlled which means you upload whatever you want and the students aren’t able to change or delete it. So be sure and put those delightful Year 9 photos of them up….I’m kidding, that’s not ok. There are also opportunities for the students to have their own page within the folder which only the teacher can access. This is great for when the students are doing individual work, assessments or internally assessed standards. The teacher is able to comment and give feedback on student work which can sometimes be a lot easier than writing them on each essay. If you are wanting students to do something constructive with the devices that they bring to class EVERY lesson, then get them doing something on OneNote. A delightful learning location.