Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking application that can be used on a computer, tablet, or via a web browser. It has a variety of features that make it helpful for teaching, whether in a classroom or remotely.
Handwriting Support
Designed with the busy teacher in mind, this 4-page quick reference guide provides step-by-step instructions in 63 essential topics for Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10. When you and your students need an answer fast, you will find it at a glance with this Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10 Quick Refe. Office Web Apps is a free, online version of Microsoft Office that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Office Web Apps are accessed through Windows Live SkyDrive, a cloud-based storage service that allows you to create, upload and share Office documents, in addition to other files.
Engineering Professors Maggie Delano and Erik Cheever have used OneNote with an Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface laptop for in-class notes. OneNote supports using a stylus to write on a tablet, so it is possible to produce handwritten notes or start with a pre-made presentation or images and add annotations.
For a great example, see Professor Delano’s Engineering 15 OneNote notebook. Thank you to Professors Delano and Cheever for sharing their expertise.
Organization
OneNote is organized like a notebook with the ability to create pages and groups of pages called sections. You can create a notebook for each class with a section for each topic or lecture and then multiple pages within each section containing content for that topic.
In-Person or Remote
When teaching in person most faculty connect the tablet to the projection system. When teaching remotely, it is possible to share the tablet screen for live sessions in Zoom, record a screen capture for asynchronous viewing, or share the completed notes as a webpage or PDF.
Share Automatically via OneDrive
Microsoft’s OneDrive is similar to Google Drive. It is possible to set up a OneNote notebook to automatically save to OneDrive and then share the notebook link with students. Once the link is set up, the notebook is immediately available to students online. When you are done with a class, just close the application. The notebook is synced to OneDrive and your students can access via a browser.
Class Notebook
The online features of OneNote allow faculty to create a personal page for each student within the class notebook available only to the individual student and the teacher, a collaboration space editable by all members of the class, and a content library for instructors to distribute information to students. Chemistry Professor Kathryn Riley has a great screencast on how to use OneNote collaboration tools for classroom or lab use.
Get Started
OneNote is available to all Swarthmore employees as part of the Office 365 suite. Visit the software installers page for Office 365 to gain access and install on your computer. To install on a tablet, download from the App Store.
More information
For additional information, see the Teaching with Tablets Program page or get in touch with your Academic Technologist. Maggie Delano has also generously offered to discuss using an iPad or OneNote with any Swarthmore faculty with questions.
Appreciation
Thanks to the Engineering Department, especially Maggie Delano, Erik Cheever, Allan Moser, and Mike Piovoso for working with ITS and sharing their experiences with their use of tablets in class.
The OneNote Class Notebook is an app that helps you set up OneNote in your class. This app will create a class notebook, which includes three types of sub-notebooks:
Student Notebooks — private notebooks that are shared between each teacher and their individual students. Teachers can access these notebooks at any time, but students cannot see other students’ notebooks.
Content Library — a notebook for teachers to share course materials with students. Teachers can add and edit its materials, but for students, the notebook is read-only.
Collaboration Space — a notebook for all students and the teacher in the class to share, organize, and collaborate.
In addition, we have released the Class Notebook Add-in, which is a useful tool to help make Class Notebooks even more efficient for teachers. This add-in is freely available for users of OneNote 2013 and 2016 for Windows, and is also built into OneNote 2016 for Mac. To learn more, please see these Support articles:
What you’ll need
An Microsoft 365 subscription for Education that includes OneDrive for Business. If you're not sure you have this, please contact your IT administrator to verify.
An organizational account for yourself (the teacher) with permissions to use the OneNote Class Notebook app to create the class notebooks.
Your students must have an Microsoft 365 organizational account.
We recommend Internet Explorer 10 or Internet Explorer 11 to use the OneNote Class Notebook app. Other modern browsers should also work.
GETTING STARTED
Launch the OneNote Class Notebook
Sign in to Office 365.
Click the app launcher in the upper left, then All apps.
In the list of apps that appears, click the Class Notebook app.
Onenote Teacher Lesson Planner
Create a Class Notebook
(Optional) Add another teacher to your Class Notebook
Add your students to your Class Notebook
Managing Class Notebooks
To manage other capabilities for your Class Notebooks, click the Manage notebooks button from the Class Notebook wizard.
This displays a page that shows all class notebooks created by you, as well as information for customizing each one.
Options include:
Renaming student sections — To rename any student sections, click the little pencil icon, and then type the new name of the section. Be sure to click Save after renaming student sections.
Adding student sections — To distribute a new section to all students, click the Add section button. Be sure to click Save after adding student sections.
Enabling the Teacher-Only section group — The Teacher-Only section group is a private space where only the teacher can see what’s inside. To add a Teacher Only section group to your Class Notebook, click Enable Teacher-Only section group. Other teachers that have access to your Class Notebook will also have access to the Teacher-Only section group, but students cannot see anything here.
Locking the Collaboration Space — Enabling this option changes the Collaboration Space to read-only (or lockdown) to prevent any students from editing. You can toggle the switch from locked to unlocked at any time.
Opening the Class Notebook — Click Open to open the Class Notebook.
Sharing a link to the Class Notebook — To send a link to the Class Notebook to your class, select and copy the text in the Link box, and then paste it into an email.
Help your students find their Class Notebook
TROUBLESHOOTING
I don’t see the OneNote Class Notebook icon in my app launcher. What’s wrong?
Teaching Math With Onenote
Try the following:
Onenote Teacher Tools
Make sure you have one of the following licenses:
Office 365 Education for Faculty
Office 365 A1 Plus PLUS for Faculty
Microsoft 365 Faculty Individual Sign Up
Office 365 A1 for Faculty
Microsoft 365 Plan A2 for Faculty
Office 365 A3 for Faculty
Microsoft 365 Plan A4 for Faculty
SharePoint (Plan 1) for Faculty
SharePoint (Plan 2) for Faculty
Office Professional Plus for Faculty
Office Web Apps (Plan 1) For Faculty
Office Web Apps (Plan 2) For Faculty
Check that the OneNote Class Notebook app is not disabled in the Admin Portal:
Open the app launcher and then click Admin.
In the left navigation pane, under Admin, click SharePoint.
On the next screen, in the left navigation pane, click Settings.
Check that OneNote Class Notebook is set to Show.
If you still don’t see the OneNote Class Notebook icon after following the preceding steps, please file a support ticket at https://aka.ms/EDUSupport.