OneNote on iPad and iPod - how to use it with the web and PC version for teaching and learning

Earlier today I wrote about the release of OneNote for iPad and iPod, and I promised I’d describe a scenario of using it in teaching and learning. I’ve tried to describe how it can be used by a teacher to make their teaching easier, share more information with their students, and support out of school learning - as well as potentially reduce the mountain of paper that seems a regular feature of my children’s school backpacks!

Here’s my simple scenario:

• The teacher uses OneNote to prepare a lesson plan
  • As they collect information from different sources, and web pages, OneNote automatically adds the source info for later reference
  • The teacher can add graphics & diagrams from other sources, or draw their own diagrams, as well as annotate graphics
  • Videos can be embedded, or linked, for use in the lesson
  • If the teacher wants to use a PowerPoint presentation, that too can be embedded, so that everything the teacher needs is in one place
• The lesson is then delivered using OneNote
  • The teacher can use the OneNote notebook as either a source of info and prompt for them, or put it up onto a projector and use it to structure the whole lesson.
  • If there’s an interactive whiteboard in the classroom, by using OneNote the teacher can also annotate, draw diagrams etc, as they go along on the whiteboard, and this is then saved in the OneNote notebook automatically
  • You can even use OneNote to make a recording of the whole lesson, so that the students can go back and listen to or watch the whole lesson or the particular parts that they need to revise!
• The teacher can then share the OneNote notebook with their students, for them to use afterwards
  • If they do this in SkyDrive, they can just set the default for all of a particular notebook to be shared, and keep all their lesson materials in that notebook
  • If they don’t want students to see next week’s lesson, they can set a password on each new lesson page as they start to create it, and then remove it when they teach that lesson - meaning that it’s closed to students all the time they are creating it and until they want it to be available
• The teacher can also publish the homework assignments on the OneNote as well
  • Using the password trick above they can ensure students do see the assignments until it’s the right time
  • They can also set groups in the class differentiated assignments by creating multiple homework pages - and give each group a different password to get to their assignment page
• Students can access their assignments and lesson notes wherever they are
  • The super-keen ones can access it on their iPhones and Windows Phones on the way home on the bus/train (how cool would it be to get your homework sorted before you’ve even reached home?
  • At home they could access it on their iPad (or more likely, on Dad’s iPad), or their home PC or school laptop with Office installed, or over the web on any computer using Office Web Apps on SkyDrive
  • If they don’t have internet access at home (eg they are one of the 6% of school students without home Internet access) they can use their school laptop with OneNote offline - they just need to sync their laptop before they leave school - eg in the lesson - and then they have all the files available at home, including any embedded videos and graphics
• There are plenty of other things that could be done too - like asking students to submit their assignments through a shared OneNote notebook (and you can use the same password protection trick to keep students from seeing others’ work) and allowing the teacher to mark the work online, make comments, record commentary etc

Your students and teachers can download OneNote for iPad and iPod from the iTunes store, and you’re already likely to have OneNote on your school computers (and if you haven’t it’s time to install it )

Find all the OneNote info on this blog
Find out more about OneNote for iPad and iPod