Last week we launched a bunch of new OneNote education resources on the new OneNote site for educators. This site contains great resources for OneNote and teachers so make sure to bookmark it and check back regularly.  I also want to give a shout-out to the new Office Back to School site, which has a bunch of great materials around Office and education, including Parents and Teachers. 

Today I want to talk more about the OneNote 2007 Toolkit for Teachers.  If you haven’t yet downloaded this toolkit DO IT NOW!!!  I promise you won’t be disappointed.  This toolkit is a OneNote notebook with training, how-to articles, teacher-focused OneNote feature explanations, videos, lesson plan examples, and other resources to help teachers start and then master the use of OneNote in the classroom.

I’ll repeat my recommendation from last week to:

• Download and go through the toolkit
• Share it with other teachers
• Put in on your school's internal network for others to use
• Tell your faculty and principal about it
• Tell your administrators about it

What’s in the toolkit?

There are 8 sections in the toolkit, and I will be covering two of them in greater detail today. Here are the 8:

1. Welcome
2. Great Education Features
3. Lesson Plans
4. Collaboration
5. Distribution
6. Examples
7. Common Questions
8. OneNote Add-ins

Section #1 - Welcome

The first section of this notebook contains a lot of basic materials around what is OneNote, why you might want to use it, and how to get started.  If you’re like most people, you will usually skip introductions, how-to videos, and explanations of what the product is.  I fully understand that- it’s human nature.  But for those of you who actually look through this type of information, you will get a huge head start on the people who skip everything in this section.  But don’t tell those folks (sshhhh) – they will just wonder how you became a OneNote Ninja so quickly and why they are still at 100-level OneNote learning :-)

In this Welcome section, you’ll also find things like OneNote and learning styles information, Training videos, How-to articles, case studies about OneNote and education.

And last but not least, a OneNote Toolkit is never complete without the OneNote song!

Section #2 – Great Education Features

The next section of the Teacher toolkit covers many specific OneNote features.  Not only do we have content from the OneNote Guide, but we’ve also added and enhanced existing content with education-focused materials.  You will find pages such as:

• Managing Teacher Schedules
• Organizing Planning Materials, Class Work, Answer Keys, and Research
• Using OneNote for Day to Day Tasks
• Posting a OneNote "Class" package to SharePoint
• Attaching Files to Your Lessons
• Turning On Rule and Graph Lines
• Creating and Modifying Templates

 That’s it for today.  I’ll be covering the other sections of the Toolkit in future blog entries.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Microsoft released a bunch of new OneNote resources for teachers at the NECC 2008 conference in San Antonio. Without further ado, I'm going to point everyone to them in this post.

First, off, here is the new OneNote Teacher resources on the Microsoft.com Education Site. This will contain lots of great resources for OneNote and teachers so make sure to bookmark it and check back regularly. I'll be sure to let people know when new things appear here as well.

Second, for those educators or administrators or IT folks who want to understand at a high level, what "OneNote NextGen Learning" is all about, watch this new Flash video about OneNote in the digital classroom.

Over the next week or two I hope to cover more of these in detail in this blog, but today I'll mainly be posting the links.

Introducing the OneNote 2007 Toolkit for Teachers

Click here to download the OneNote 2007 Toolkit for Teachers: If there's only one resource that you start out with, make sure it's this one. The toolkit is a OneNote notebook with templates, how-to articles, teacher-focused OneNote feature explanations, training videos, lesson plan examples, and other resources to help teachers start and then master the use of OneNote in the classroom. My recommendation is to:

• Download and go through it
• Share it with other teachers
• Put in on your school's internal network for others to use
• Tell your faculty and principal about it
• Tell your administrators about it

OneNote "How-to" training videos for teachers

Next up, we have a new set of OneNote training videos created specifically for teachers. Each video is just a few minutes long and there are a range of topics starting with the basics and moving into screen clippings, Outlook integration and all the way up to shared notebooks and collaboration. There are 29 short videos in all to choose from. Just go to the OneNote Teacher resources page and scroll down towards the bottom and you'll see all of the videos.

Try sample notebooks

Check out these OneNote notebooks to get some ideas of how to use OneNote in school and in your personal life.

That should be enough to keep everyone busy for a while :-) I'll keep posting over the next week or so and go through the OneNote 2007 Toolkit for Teachers in more detail on a section-by-section basis.

Have fun!

As I mentioned in my first blog entry, in addition to education I planned to blog about how OneNote is being used as a corporate eLearning, training and on-boarding tool.

Over the past two years, we've been experimenting with this new learning model and now it's starting to really catch on, both inside  and outside of Microsoft. The main idea is that instead of thinking about OneNote as only a note-taking tool, think about is as an eLearning distribution tool, or a way to distribute a new employee handbook or a new student handbook.

If you have an office or cubicle you work in, I ask you to turn around and look to see if you have any binders from trainings, classes, conferences, or on-boarding. If you're like many of us, you have binder upon binder sitting dusty on your shelf. Or maybe you just tossed all of them the last time you moved :-) With the OneNote model, you can have a digital version of every training or conference you've ever attended. And it's searchable, portable, offline-able, and there are no printing costs! With OneNote's collaborative features, course designers can collaboratively developed classes or trainings on SharePoint or a UNC file share and then package up the notebook for students when finished. Many groups inside and outside of Microsoft have said that the collaborative courseware development through shared notebook truly changes the way that they work. No more mailing around giant documents for weeks. All courseware designers can be on the same page, they can go offline, and OneNote's flexibility allows easy layout options along with rich media types.

The benefits we've seen from this both at Microsoft and externally are:

1. Digital distribution, retention and reusability of materials
2. Improved collaboration for both students and course development
3. Costs savings and efficiency
4. Reduce the environmental footprint

Within Microsoft, there are groups all across the company using OneNote to replace paper materials. We've already been reaping huge costs benefits. One example is listed below where we saved $360,000 for a single large class being converted to OneNote notebooks. If you did this for every class and training at Microsoft (or another company or school), the savings could be quite large and well into the millions of dollars. Within Microsoft, groups are now using OneNote for management training, IT on-boarding, new employee on-boarding, sales readiness, HR conferences, partner conferences, project management classes, new product training, new intern ramp-up, finance playbooks, legal documentation, etc. And think about all that paper, processing and wasted efficiency that can be saved! If your course needs a last minute update with paper and it's already en-route to China, you have a big problem. With OneNote, it's a quick change and the "book/binder" is already updated.

Case studies

1. Microsoft Management Excellence case study:
   • 30% increased use of learning materials
   • $360,000 cost savings for Microsoft
   • Environmental footprint reduction
2. US Coast Guard case study - IT Training

New public OneNote Resource for everyone

Download: Using Office OneNote 2007 for Training Resource Kit

This is a Resource Kit that has been designed for people involved with eLearning, training or on-boarding. This walks you through the steps to create you own rich OneNote notebook. Sections in this notebook include : Basics, Collaboration, Distribution, and Examples.  

The kit includes:

• Toolkit - Using OneNote 2007 for Training (make sure to look at this)
• Sample New Employee Notebook
• Sample Training notebook
• OneNote training Video

Here's a sampling of what the toolkit also discusses:

Instructor Led Training	See how OneNote 2007 can help you to enhance instructor led training sessions.
New Employee On-boarding	New employees can easily get up to speed by searching in one place (their OneNote 2007 notebook) for the information and resources they need.
Manager Development (self paced)	OneNote 2007 enables managers to have job aids at their fingertips.
Sales Readiness	OneNote 2007 enable sales people to easily take their training content on the road and search it quickly for relevant information.
Helpdesk (IT)	Provide all helpdesk materials in a comprehensive, searchable, updatable package with OneNote 2007.
Facilitator Guides	Easily move existing facilitator guides to OneNote and enable facilitators to add their own information and notes.
Participant Guides	OneNote 2007 can enhance participant guides through providing all materials in one comprehensive, organized package.
Other Learning Activities	Additional examples of OneNote in learning activities.

Screen shot from the Microsoft Management Excellence notebook



Contoso New Employee On-Boarding:

Erik meets Bill

For those of you who read my last blog entry, you'll know that my wife and I had Erik Westrum, a innovative teacher from Drammen, Norway over to our house for dinner last week (he liked the lefse, as well as the copper river salmon:-). Erik was one of the award winning teachers from Norway that was flown over by Microsoft last week. He had a chance to show me the cool things he's been doing in his class with video, OneNote, and other ICT applications. Erik is one of those guys who truly loves what he does and it shows. Microsoft hosted these Innovative Teachers from around the world in Redmond and they had a chance to meet with various groups and people. On Monday, I brought Erik by "Building 36" , where I work. I introduced him to some OneNote team members, some MS Word team members, as well as the General Manager of Outlook.

On Tuesday, Microsoft had a little surprise for the teachers. At the close of one of the meetings with the teachers, they brought out Bill Gates! Erik had the chance to meet Bill and get his photo taken with Bill and the other 10 or so teachers. Erik also asked Bill a question during the Q&A period that partially had to do with OneNote :-) Needless to say, I think Erik had a great trip out to Redmond.

Cross-continental OneNote

While Erik was out visiting, he had an idea around a collaborative project in OneNote with teachers from other countries. Erik and his students use OneNote regularly and he thought it would be an interesting project to collaborate with students from other countries. Based on some thoughts he had, I suggested that he talk with Forest Ridge from Bellevue, since they are also very active with OneNote and shared notebooks. I also suggested that the Islay School in Scotland might be interested and Ian Stuart has confirmed that they are. So that makes Norway, the US and Scotland. The teachers will be deciding the what and how in the near future so we'll be sure to keep you posted on how this collaborative project between schools unfolds.

BTW, Congrats to Ian and the Islay School for their recent LTS Ambition award!

 

NECC

Hi folks - for those of you who are aware of or going to NECC 2008 (National Education Computing Conference) this year, be on the look out for Microsoft and OneNote, in particular. Microsoft has some great materials that have been put together and the OneNote team has a bunch of excellent new resources that are targeted towards educators and faculty. Using these materials, my bet is that any teacher or faculty member, young or old, can quickly become a OneNote education master.  I can't share all of the details yet, but I can give you a little taste of good stuff coming out. This will include:

• Teacher Toolkit
• Samples
• Training
• Videos

So make sure to swing by the Microsoft booth and find ht e education materials if you're going to be in San Antonio at NECC later this month. If you aren't going to NECC, rest assured that we'll be posting all of the materials online so any teacher on earth can benefit.

One thing I want to do on this blog is understand how other teachers, students and schools are using OneNote. We are often surprised by the creativity in which people use our software. I have some examples below of OneNote in education, and we also have many case studies with OneNote in education, but I know there are more.  BTW, eLearning, training and on-boarding OneNote stories are welcome too.  It's also great for the product team to understand how our customers are using OneNote, as this feedback can help influence decisions in the next version of OneNote, which we are working on now.

How are you using OneNote in education? Share with the community…

Examples of educators and schools using OneNote

• Forest Ridge and OneNote school video
• Forest Ridge and OneNote case study
• Wallace High School
• Philadelphia School of the Future
• VIDEO: Thomas Jefferson High School
• Cincinnati Country Day School
• Islay High Scool, Scotland
• Cary Academy - Grade 6-12 examples
• Kansas State University
• Northern Ireland - cross border curriculum
• Palm Beach University
• St. Charles Catholic
• Virginia Tech

Innovative Teachers visiting Microsoft in Redmond this week

This week Microsoft is hosting some of the winners of last years "World Innovative Teachers Forum" from Helsinki, Finland. For those of you who may not be familiar with this forum is, here's the definition:

“Innovative Teachers Forums are part of the Innovative Teachers program, a global community of educators sponsored by Microsoft Partners in Learning. The forums are annual events that recognize and reward innovative teachers who practice the elements of 21st century learning in their own classrooms, and then incorporate these skills into the student learning environment.”

I had the chance to go to the forum last year and co-present "OneNote in the Classroom" with Palie Cantu, an amazing teacher from Forest Ridge. I also had the chance to meet many of the innovative teachers from countries around the world and the great work they are doing. Imagine a United Nations for teachers and you'll get a sense of what the event is like. It was truly impressed by the diversity of innovation that is happening in schools around the world.

In particular, I had the chance to get to know quite a few of the teachers, including Kumaras Pillay from South Africa and Erik Westrum from Norway. Both Kumaras and Erik will be traveling to Redmond this week. I've also learned that OneNote is now being used in schools all the way up in Svalbard archipelago in the town of Longyearbyen,Norway, one of the farthest points on earth where towns exist. The teachers say they are using "OneNote at the top of the world. My wife and I actually are having Erik over to our house for dinner tonight. I'm part Norwegian myself so we'll have some Lefse prepared for him ;-)

The World Innovative Teachers Forum is part of the broader Microsoft Innovative Teachers program. If you've never heard of this program, I strongly encourage you to check it out. You can join the Innovative Teachers Network and collaborate with great teachers from around the world in a community. You can also submit your own work and you too might be able to go to a future World Innovative Teachers Forum. This year it's in Thailand. And of course you can also get the latest and greatest OneNote education materials from the network. We'll be adding a bunch more soon so keep your eyes peeled!

New beta version of PowerPoint 2007 "Producer" available

BTW, separate from OneNote, be sure to check out the beta version of Microsoft Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. Great for classrooms - both students and teachers.

Wow - lots of great comments for my first post. I'm glad to see the community growing already. I apologize for the break from my first entry - I was at a wedding during Memorial day weekend and have been trying to get caught up. I'll try and answer a few more comments soon.

There are so many topics to start with, I'm not quite sure where to begin. Thus, I will just jump in and describe how I got into the whole OneNote and Education "scene".

OneNote NextGen Learning Background

About 3 years ago, while I was working on OneNote 2007, I took a class here at Microsoft. I was sitting there watching another student scribble notes on a printed on PPT deck and then furiously transcribe the notes in Notepad during the lunch break. I felt really bad for the guy. At that instant, the rest of Microsoft was not yet aware of the capabilities of OneNote 2007, in terms of what would be possible yet because we had not yet shipped. I started thinking about what would be possible in OneNote 2007 for both adult eLearning and education. A key idea of the "OneNote NextGen Learning" concept is instead of treating OneNote like pure meeting notes tool, treat it more as a tool that could encompass a large part of the learning process, including:

1. Deliver classroom content with OneNote
2. Easy collaborative content development for teachers
3. Ability to collaborate in the classroom
4. Reaching different types of learners and styles
5. Keeping students and teachers organized with one place for all learning materials

In addition, after thinking about it a bit more, the other obvious benefits would be cost savings for schools and companies, while also lessening the environmental impact. At that point, I started experimenting with a few concepts and working with some internal training and education folks at Microsoft to start trying out these ideas. We tried out many concept and many pilots with positive results. We also discovered that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to create amazing learning materials in OneNote.

I also started trying to find examples of people in education doing cool things with OneNote and pushing it beyond the note-taking capabilities.  Some of the first examples included Einstein Elementary School and a Math class a person on my team taught after school. Another great example is the Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart. I'll spend some future blog posts talking in much more detail about these schools and others.

Ever since then, I've been fascinated with the overall "NextGen Learning Concept" and have been working with more and more educators and eLearning folks ever since.

Good, Better, Best

Many people ask - does my entire school need OneNote in order to be effective in education or eLearning? The answer is "No". I like to think of it as a Good/Better/Best model

• Good: Teachers and or/faculty use OneNote to organize their materials, be more productive
  • Einstein elementary school example 3rd Grade Math notebook, teacher's version
  • Einstein elementary school Math website

• Better: Students have OneNote at home as part of Office 2007 Home and Student, Office Enterprise (universities) or Office Ultimate and keep class materials, notes, research, projects in OneNote

• Best: Teachers, students and faculty all have OneNote within a 1:1 computing environment and a great deal of the learning process in encompassed within OneNote, including class materials, collaboration, ePortfolios, etc.
  • Forest Ridge Sacred Heart school video
  • Forest Ridge Sacred Heart school case study

Inspired Teachers Contest

BTW, Microsoft just released a new "Inspired Teachers" contest. If you fill out your story, you have the chance to win a bunch of cool technology prizes that can help out your classroom. I encourage every teacher reading this blog to apply!

This is the inaugural entry of the new OneNote and education blog!  My name is Mike Tholfsen and I am the test manager of the OneNote team and will be the primary author of this blog.  Since Dan, John, David, Olya, Michael, Jeff, and Chris (ex-OneNote) all have their own OneNote blogs, I thought I'd blog about one of the areas I'm very passionate about, which is OneNote and education.  I am interested in how OneNote can help enhance the learning environment and I believe OneNote will be a primary tool for 21st century education.  We also plan to have other guest bloggers from the OneNote team and from other Microsoft teams post education-related entries here.  John Guin is still writing the OneNote Testing blog so even though I'm the test manager, this blog will be about OneNote and education.

Because there are so many things happening right now with OneNote and education, we wanted to start this blog to have a dialog with the education community, as well as share ideas, resources, and gather feedback from teachers, students and faculty.  We also hope to point to examples of great things that educators and students are doing today with OneNote and education.  In addition to K-12 and Higher Education, you can also expect to see topics on eLearning, Training and on-boarding with OneNote.  Many companies, including Microsoft, are delivering eLearning solutions using OneNote.

Some of the types of OneNote-related entries I hope to cover in this blog include:

• Teachers
• Students
• Faculty
• Schools
• Collaborative learning
• Collaborative curriculum development
• OneNote education samples
• OneNote tips for education
• Future directions for OneNote and education
• Corporate eLearning, training and on-boarding
• Corporate educators
• A bunch of other fun stuff

Over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to meet with teachers, students and faculty from around the world, and I've seen some amazing things that people have done with OneNote.  I look forward to starting a dialog with everyone and you should expect many future blog entries about OneNote and education.

-mike