Community reviews for Microsoft OneNote

Before OneNote, my students had much less access to our materials. I could post things in our LMS or email them out, but often I ended up printing things so my students could annotate. Now, they can access anything from class, including our shared notes, annotated text, and assignments, 24/7 on their devices. Unless your school's internet and your classroom management skills are phenomenal, be careful with the collaboration space. Otherwise, this is the perfect place to put all of your materials, procedures, readings, and lesson plans. Students are so empowered when all their resources are in one place!

This tool has extremely powerful capabilities when utilized correctly. OneNote works in a way where each students get their own notebook with different chapters and pages. Teachers set up the "students" notebook with certain pages, and throughout the class year can send them pages with material on them. Student's don't have to download anything or go to any website. What's more is that teachers can access each students notebook, so students can complete the work that shows up in their notebook and teachers can easily go into their notebook to leave feedback. This removes any confusion as to where the homework is and where to submit it.

I like the open-ended nature of the tool because it allows teachers (and students) to use the tool however best fits their learning/teaching experience. Some of the technical aspects can be challenging, especially if they aren't working correctly - if things do not sync up right, or there are log in issues. However, the tool overall is a great addition to the classroom learning environment.

Overall, I think OneNote's Class Notebook is a great organizational tool that streamlines the distribution of materials and facilitates collaboration between students. I like being able to exert some control over students' organization and having access to notebooks from previous years to reuse materials. I never have to lug home a class set of composition books again and can largely avoid unreliable copy machines, not only saving me time, but reducing my use of paper. However, after using OneNote the past few years, I am partial to the 2016 version and was not pleased when my students' computers were updated to the new 2018 version. Not only am I not familiar enough with the new interface to help my students use it, there also seem to be more issues with syncing delays this year with the new version. While I am normally prepared with paper backups for those who aren't able to access the materials in the notebook, I worry that if the syncing delays become pervasive enough, students will become frustrated with using the notebook and resist adopting it despite its many benefits, and finding another tool to organize students' materials as well as I have been able to with Class Notebook would require a significant shift in my teaching practices after using it so extensively the past few years.

I love using One Note to teach students. Creating a notebook is easy and versatile. I like being able to include a variety of media and the accessibility tools make it a user friendly tool for students with varying abilities. Students have the ability to interact and collaborate with a notebook. The co-authoring feature is a great way to get students to collaborate.

Versatile, robust application for so much more than note-taking. Multi-media capacity, powerful access tools as well as both spoken and written feedback, seamless transition between inking, doodling, highlighting, and typing, keeping everything organized and categorized by topic, process, difficulty, etc. The management of flipping and gamification is very doable with this product. And, combined with the Assignments function of Teams, it's even more of a powerhouse. My students and I both love our OneNote Class Notebook!!

I think OneNote Notebooks - and the extension to Class Notebooks - is a fantastic learning tool that facilitates 21st century learning very well. The variety of ways the Notebooks can be used - from sharing content to creating presentations to brainstorming and collaborating - allows students to grow within the context of the OneNote notebook and not become quickly bored. It is certainly not a niche product. It allows for enough personalization and individualization that it can serve most academic subjects and learning fields. It could serve both students and teachers better by being a bit more user friendly in terms of finding and accessing available tools, although it is certainly more user friendly when compared to earlier Microsoft Office applications. This is a great tool that I look forward to learning more and more about.

I think it is a great teaching tool for students. I truly believe it is the way students are going to take notes in the future so we are prepping them for it. There are a lot of accessibility features that will help all students. You can record, use your own handwriting, and even change what type of paper is on the screen. All of these features will help your students be ready for their future.

Both teachers and students have begun to see how easy and effective OneNote can be. Teachers really like having their information in one place and not having to carry a PLC binder with them. Since they have been exposed to the Staff Notebook, many of them have started to incorporate the classroom OneNote in the classes. Students really enjoy using this application because as I said it allows them to work at their own pace. I enjoy using it with my students because as they are working I can "check in" on them and their progress. It also allows me to annotate to them if they need assistance privately. Another great feature, is that it is a web based application as well, so this allows both students and teachers to access their information from anywhere at any time. This makes this application great for a blended classes and for administrators to check on teacher progress during PLCs. All in all I really like this product and will continue using it with my students and staff.

I love OneNote and use it for my teaching as well as using it with students. It is a wonderful tool for keeping organized. I think students appreciate having all of their data in one place. If you work with them and really get them dedicated to utilizing it to keep themselves organized, the benefits will be great. This may be especially true with struggling students, although it can be challenging to get these students to complete the necessary tasks of entering complete data into the notebook that will help them reap these benefits. I would like to see a set of icons included that could be used on notebook covers to help students differentiate their notebooks more quickly than just having different colors. Although I haven't been able to take full advantage of this, schools that have completely adopted Office 365 can also set up Class Notebooks. This allows teachers to create notebook templates that can be distributed to students for them to complete.