Tom Jackson of Microsoft has been working with some Irish schools on a fascinating project using OneNote to develop and distribute curriculum to students. To understand the background of the project, read his initial blog entry from February.

Tom recently posted a new blog entry summarizing what they did. He will be adding more detailed blog entries regularly so be sure to check back. I cited a few parts of his entry below.

Supporting documents:

• For site visitors on Tom's SkyDrive site here
• If you're interested in the Curriculum Mapping piece that was a core part of the Northern Ireland solution, you can see a great video about it here

Quotes:

• From Niall- Dunshaughlin CC Student: “I do believe that given the right training and equipment, - OneNote is the future for learning!"

• Kevin Reilly- Dunshaughlin CC History Teacher:“Excellent software to facilitate organisation in a student’s learning.Inspires inquisitorial spirit e.g. students organised a guest speaker, Kari Rosvall”  (See RTE video for her background)

OneNote and Learning Styles - I found the quote from Neil below to be particularly interesting as we have been talking about OneNote and learning styles as well. This seems to support the research that Dr. Ole Lauridsen has done with his "OneNote and Learning Styles - A Perfect Match." paper.  If you haven't yet read his pamphlet or watched the video of Dr. Lauridsen, I would highly encourage you to take a browse.

• Neil Armstrong-Wallace HS History Teacher: “More pleasing to note, is the improvement of a couple of pupils who have shown an improvement in their essay mark, compared to earlier work this term. This includes Student A, Student B, Student C, Student D and especially Student E. Student E has really shown the true merits of using OneNote and UMPC in the classroom. He was previously underachieving, yet with the pilot he really showed what he was capable of. I believe him to be a kinesthetic learner; therefore he needs to be focused on completing a task using his hands. Otherwise his attention wanders. During the pilot he was very focused and really put the largest amount of effort into the OneNote module that I have seen all year to date!!. This means that the OneNote has the potential of helping to improve the work and grades of underachieving males and kinesthetic learners. It may have a larger field in helping pupils with SEN with organisation and producing work."

Are other educators experimenting with OneNote and curriculum? Let us know - share you story!

-mike