A short overview of this free and fully-featured tool for note-taking, journalling, collaboration and assignments. This article is intended for schools, but the same approach may be used in FE and HE (without the parent access).
Class Notebooks are a special type of OneNote notebook, designed for teaching.
OneNote is the note-taking and journaling tool built into the Microsoft platform. All school children and teachers can use it for free. OneNote may be used through desktop and mobile apps, and a fully featured web-browser version. It can be used in school, at home, and (using the mobile apps) on the move. It is one of the most popular applications in the world, used at all levels of education and in business.
If you have a Microsoft account, you should be able to sign in to OneNote online. Anyone can have a basic free account. Schools usually provide their children with an account for free. This includes most of the other Microsoft apps.
A note in OneNote is a page of unlimited length, into which users can type text, handwritten notes (with a touch screen device), add images, multimedia, comments etc. Notes are organised (usually in date order) into sections. Sections can be further organised into subsections.
Class Notebook is an extension to OneNote, that allows teachers (and school administrators) to create a shared notebook for a class. A Class Notebook has students assigned to it, and one or more teachers. Parents can be given view access to their child’s view of the notebook.
The shared notebook has sections for:
- Collaboration – all members of the class can work on these notes.
- Content – all members of the class can see these notes, but only the teachers can modify them, pages can be copied from Content into individual student sections, or the collaboration section.
- Teachers only.
- Student section – each student has their own notebook section, which may be accessed and edited by the student and the teachers (and viewed by the parent if that is enabled).
Class notebooks can be created from a template, for example created by the school or MAT. A template may be created for a specific year group or topic, or any other unit of organisation or purpose.
A structure of folders and sub-folders, and pre-structured pages, may be added to the template. Every class that uses the template, and every child in the class, will then begin with the same sections, sub-sections, and pages.
Class Notebook has a Microsoft Teams Education integration, which makes creating class notebooks easier, and adds some useful features including assignments and grading. A teacher can create a template OneNote page (or any other Microsoft document), and assign it to be worked on by the students, with a deadline and marking rubric. Assignments can be individual or group. The students get copies of the page or document, work on it, and submit before the deadline. The teachers then grade and give feedback. The assignment (if a note was used) stays in the student’s notebook.
The Microsoft 365 for education platform has many other useful tools, such as AI powered learning accelerators for literacy development.
An example application of Class Notebook
A group of schools wants to get all children in all classes at all levels across all schools doing an enrichment programme – activities that go beyond the prescribed curriculum, to ensure that the students have a broader base for their development.
They have identified a set of themes, e.g. STEM, International, Wellbeing, Careers. And they are collectively identifying and enabling activities for each of these themes, appropriate to each of the year groups.
They want the students to record and reflect on the activities that they do, building up a record of achievement and a portfolio of memories. They want staff and parents to be able to see these and provide feedback. They want to be able to see how much activity is going on around the schools, and which activities are being most effective and popular. They want each student to keep developing their notebooks as they move through the years.
They create a template notebook with:
- Sub-sections for each of the themes in the student personal section, so that each student has their own folder for the notes on each theme.
- Sub-sections for each of the themes in the teacher only section, to contain template note pages for recording and reflection.
There could be another teacher-only notebook, shared across the whole MAT, containing information about activities and templates to be used for recording and reflecting.
They set up class teams in Teams for each class, and generate a class notebook, based on the template.
As they do activities, individual students can create notes in the relevant sections of their notebooks on the activities, including text, images etc. Teachers and parents can read these and comment.
The note-taking by the students could use a template for recording and reflecting. This could be a generic template, one designed to work with the theme or year group, or one specific to the activity.
The teacher might create a template with some information and photos about the activity, sending it into each student’s notebook for them to complete in class or at home.
The teacher can also assign completing the reflective note as an assignment, with a deadline, to be completed at home. This could be a graded activity.
Teachers and students reflect together on their notebooks and progress on the themes.
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