How to create a OneNote Class Notebook

OneNote is not just for business; it’s use in the classroom offers numerous benefits for both teachers and students. It acts as a versatile digital notebook, allowing teachers to organise lesson plans, resources, and assignments all in one place. Using the collaborative features, students can engage in group work, share notes, and receive real-time feedback from teachers.

OneNote also allows for various learning styles, enabling the use of multimedia elements such as images, audio, and video, to enrich lessons. Additionally, it simplifies organisation for students by allowing them to keep all their class notes and assignments neatly organised and easily accessible from any device. This not only boosts productivity but also helps students develop essential digital skills.

OneNote offers several education-focused features designed to enhance the classroom experience.

• A Class Notebook allows teachers to create a personal workspace for every student, a content library for handouts, and a collaboration space for group activities.
• Page distribution allows teachers to easily distribute assignments or materials to the entire class with just one click.
• The Review Student Work options make it simple to monitor progress and provide personalised feedback in real time.
• Integration with Immersive Reader supports students with diverse learning needs by improving reading comprehension with tools like text-to-speech, syllable highlighting, and line focus.
• The Math Assistant helps students solve equations step-by-step, making complex concepts easier to grasp.

Install the Class Notebook Add-in

Microsoft provide an additional Class Notebook Add-in which adds tools to distribute pages, review student work and integrate your notebook with Learning Management Systems.

To download and install the Class Notebook Add-in, click here.

The Class Notebook Structure

A Class Notebook is designed for use in educational settings, primarily by teachers and students. It contains distinct sections for student and teacher collaboration, with different levels of access:

• The Collaboration Space: both teachers and students can work together. Students can edit and interact in this section. This can be made read-only if needed as is great for group projects, brainstorming activities, shared research tasks, class discussions and peer reviews.
• The Content Library: teachers can post materials for students to view but not edit. Use to distribute assignments, lesson notes, reading materials, revision guides and class procedures.
• The Teacher-Only Section: a space for teachers to create content that is not visible to students. Plan lessons and keep resources.
• Individual Student Notebooks: each student has access to a private section where only the teacher and the individual student can see and edit. These can be used as a digital workbook to complete assignment tasks, goal setting and as a learning journal where teachers can provide direct feedback.

Create a Class Notebook

Creating a notebook in OneNote is the first step towards organising your notes and ideas efficiently. Whether you’re using OneNote for personal tasks, school projects, or work-related activities, setting up a new notebook allows you to create sections and pages tailored to your specific needs. There are no limits on how many notebooks you can create, this provides you the flexibility to keep content separate and make it easier to keep information organised.

Types of Notebooks

OneNote provides three different notebook types to work with:

1. Personal Notebook
2. Class Notebook
3. Staff Notebook

Each notebook type is tailored for specific usage based on your needs for collaboration.

To create a new Class Notebook, teachers need to use the OneNote website at onenote.com rather than the OneNote desktop app. Microsoft provides access to create new Class Notebooks via the web-based version of OneNote, where teachers can create a new notebook, add students and co-teachers, and configure notebook sections. You can also access a button which redirects you to the site via the Class Notebook Addin.

Once the Class Notebook has been created online, it can then be opened and used in the OneNote desktop app or Microsoft Teams. This change means that while the desktop app remains the primary place for working with notebook content, the initial setup of new Class Notebooks must be completed through the OneNote website.

1. Click the link to go directly to the Class Notebook page at onenote.com.
2. Sign in with your school username and password.
3. You will now see the Welcome screen:

4. From the options, select Create a class notebook.
5. You will be asked the name of your class. Enter the name as you would like it displayed and click Next:

6. You will now see a summary of the section groups you will have within the notebook and the associated permissions for teachers versus students, click Next:

7. Now you will have the option of adding another teacher to use the class notebook. This is great if you have a teachers aid or support staff who will assist you. Enter their email address in the field provided and click Next:

8. Now you can enter the name/email addresses of your students. Then click Next.
9. Finally, you will see the sections which will be created in each student’s private notebook. You have the ability to edit these by removing any you do not need, and use the Add section button to add sections you would like:

10. Click Next once you have finished.
11. You can now preview what your Teacher’s notebook and the student’s notebooks will look like. If you are happy with them, click Create:

12. Your OneNote Class Notebook will now be set up, give it a few moments.
13. Click the link at the top to Open in OneNote:

14. The OneNote Class Notebook will now be displayed in the desktop app or online web app:

Using a Class Notebook with Microsoft Teams

If your school uses Microsoft Teams, a Class Notebook can be automatically created within a class team. This provides a central place for class conversations, assignments, files, and notebook content. Students only need to access the Team to find all their learning materials.

Distribute Pages to Students

One of the biggest advantages of a Class Notebook is the ability to distribute content directly into student notebooks. Instead of students downloading worksheets or copying notes, teachers can send a page to every student with a few clicks. This ensures every student receives the same content in the correct location.

The Distribute Page feature is available through the Class Notebook Addin mentioned at the start of this post.

Review Student Work

Teachers can quickly view work submitted by students without opening individual notebooks. The Review Student Work feature allows you to monitor progress, identify students who may need support, and provide feedback directly within their notebook pages.

The Review Student Work feature is available through the Class Notebook Addin mentioned at the start of this post.

A OneNote Class Notebook provides a powerful digital learning environment where teachers can organise resources, distribute content, monitor student progress, and encourage collaboration all within a single workspace.

By setting up a well-structured Class Notebook from the beginning, you can create a more organised and engaging classroom experience while giving students easy access to their learning materials from any device. Once your notebook is in place, you can explore additional features such as distributing pages, reviewing student work, integrating with Microsoft Teams, and using tools like Immersive Reader to support diverse learning needs. Stay tuned for more posts about these features.