OneNote Overview

Microsoft's OneNote for Teachers

Microsoft office applications were a large part of my education and I used them frequently during high school and college. Within the last five years though I have integrated all of my work into GoogleDrive. I use GoogleDocs, Sheets, Slides, and other features on Google regularly.  I had not heard of or used OneNote up until being introduced during this class. As I got to know the features of OneNote, I found myself comparing it to  Google Docs. The thing that really separates OneNote from other applications is that it is directly geared towards teachers. The program has created a system to make administrative tasks in the teaching world much easier and more efficient. I liked many features of OneNote, but the two that stood out the most were the ease of creating the lesson plans, and the ability to have students work on a group project and collaborate directly through the program.

The lesson plan section of OneNote is incredibly easy to use, edit, and add anything you want. The ability to link directly to websites, PowerPoints, pictures etc. means that a teacher could very simply have this lesson plan on the screen and navigate through the resources without clicking on several different pages. It also makes it easy to go back to the lesson plan when you are done using a resource. I don’t often share my lesson plans directly with the students, but with a format like this it would be logical to do so. 



The group collaboration feature of OneNote is a game changer in my opinion. The fact that the students can use the group "research" folder to insert information as they are researching, and also add comments and edit the work along the way means that students can each be heard within their group. It also makes it easy to ensure that every aspect of a project is being covered and all students are participating. Group projects can be so tricky, and this feature would help some of the stress that comes with relying on other people in a group project. 

I appreciate what OneNote offers as a teacher and I do think those two big features I discussed would be useful to my students and my teaching. I also know it is difficult to make a switch completely to a different platform when you are used to a different one. OneNote has great attributes but I can see myself sticking to Google Docs at this point because it is what I know and my school is a Google School. 





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