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OneNote - Swiss Army Knife of Apps



OneNote is kinda like the swiss army knife of apps, it does so many things. One of the best features is it works on Chromebooks, iPads, laptops and mobile devices.

OneNote is a free app/site that allows you to take notes and organize them so you can access them quickly. While a paper notebook is awesome, OneNote enables you to add videos, files, pictures and audio to enhance your notes. I do like using the stylus to take notes at times when the keyboard just gets in the way.

To access OneNote, visit office.com and click sign in. Your login is your full school email but the password is the one you use to log into the computer. Do not use your email password, it won't work.

In this post we will show you some of the basics to getting started using OneNote. While it is an app that works on the Chromebook, the web version is what I recommend at this time.


OneNote Basics

Notebook - This is my 19-20 school year notebook. Once you open any notebook you can access the things listed below.
     Red - +Section I use sections as big topics or ideas. You could title your sections for the classes you are enrolled in, big projects or groups you belong to.
     Purple - +Page I create pages for each month. I then add one page for each day. Right click on the page name to make it a sub page, basically it indents it. I have found this organization works well for me. You could make a page per subject or one for each day.
     Green - The green area show the page I started on Sept. 5th. I can insert files, images, type and use my stylus to write with. Think of this as the notebook page you would add your notes to.

Inserting a file has a tiny limitation. You can insert as an attachment meaning it will be there but to view it you need to click to open it. Inserting a printout allows you to see and annotate the whole file. You can add PDFs and Microsoft files.

1. Click File in the upper left.
2. Click Insert File Printout.

1. Choose Google Drive.
2. Find and click your file.
3. Click Open.

The newly imported PDF is outlines in red. You can start typing or writing on it with your stylus.
Pro Tip - take the Google Slides your teacher uses and convert it to PowerPoint. Now you can annotate as they talk.


Turn paper or whiteboard into a OneNote Page
Download Office Lens on your iOS or Android. This might be one of the best apps you will see this whole year. While you can do most of this with the Drive app, this one links to OneNote!

At the bottom of the app you can select the different things you want to capture. For this example I selected document. This could be a worksheet, notebook or a page out of some book.

The app will outline the document in a faded orange line. Make sure you have the whole doc before you click the little white button.


Here are the results of using the Office Lens app. I was able to take the worksheet, turn it into a PDF and add it to my OneNote. Now I can use the stylus to mark up the page. 


Additional Resources
I recommend following @OneNoteEDU and @msonenote on twitter. They will tweet some useful ideas to up your OneNote use.

I use YouTube a ton but some of what I find isn't super useful due how old the videos are. Nothing is worse than an old tech video.
When searching for videos I usually click the Filer button right below the search window. I then select This Month and start to see what has been recently produced. Sometimes you find gold.

(bit.ly/1notearmy)

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