Empowering Student Leadership with OneNote (#MIEBoom presentation at ISTE)

It all started with a cape. Three years ago while training new students, I was wearing a OneNote cape. A student saw me and asked how he could get one. I told him he would have to earn it and I would get back to him with the details.​

So, I contacted the OneNote team to find out if there was a student OneNote expert program.  I found out that there wasn't an "official" program, but I was encouraged to create something.  The Microsoft Creative Team even designed these badges for it.  I felt extremely supported, and it was a bonus to be able to tell the students that the badge came straight from Microsoft!​

My next step was to ask teachers at my school what skills a OneNote Student Avenger should possess. They helped me form a list, and these skills are what students have to demonstrate in order to become a OneNote Student Avenger. When we first began, I assessed students face to face but after seeing Melinda Richwine's "Breakout with Onenote" lesson on the MEC I was inspired to create a self-paced digital breakout assessment in OneNote.  Once a student completes the breakout & becomes an Avenger, I am alerted through Forms.  I then send a congratulatory email to the student with information about how to access our class notebook.​

The class notebook is our line of communication and each student Avenger has a Work Log in the class notebook to record help given.  Data from the work log helps us see recurring issues. Students recommended that they receive a physical badge after helping 5 people and a cape after helping 10. If a student already has a badge, he/she will receive a $5 Sonic gift card! Students start out as a OneNote Avenger but can be promoted to a Tech Avenger at the end of the year based on what the work log shows.​ 

We also use the class notebook to share instructions, trouble-shooting tips and for planning.  We are a 1:1 school and have 2 days of new student training at the end of the summer.  The Avengers have been instrumental in helping me plan and train.​

Here is an example from our notebook where a student figured out what to do when others kept getting a purple screen in the app. She put her solution in the collaboration space of our class notebook.  

Avengers are encouraged to put one of the badges in their email signature.  This student discovered an issue and I love the last sentence, "I haven't found a solution yet, but I am still trying."​

All of the information regarding our program is on the MEC including the badges and Breakout.  We are growing the program into a Help Desk class, but it's just as important to have the Avengers as our 1st line of defense in the classroom.  Many teachers have told me that at the 1st sign of trouble they ask, "Is there an Avenger in the room?"​

I love this program because it allows students to practice 21st century skills and empowers them to take a leadership role at school.  Whenever someone asks, "Is there an Avenger in the room?" I hope the answer is always "YES"!​

Empowering Learners with OneNote

I have been using OneNote for about 8 years...I love it. It empowers learners and makes collaborating with other people and sharing ideas so much easier.  Recently, I surveyed three teachers at school who are Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts.  I asked them (Holley Fontenot, Ashley Lavine, and Mary Villaume) to describe how OneNote empowers and inspires learners. I compiled their answers to form a list of their ideas about OneNote's most helpful features:

• use across devices - access notebooks on your phone
• accessibility features such as Immersive Reader and Translate under the View tab
• integration with other tools and apps (EdPuzzle, Wakelet, Sway, Forms, embedding videos, etc.) which helps educators create dynamic notes/activities
• curation and organization of material with Office Lens and OneNote Web Clipper Chrome extension 
• print anything to OneNote and ink
• collaborate easily and work in real time
• distribute work, review work, and provide feedback efficiently and effectively
• take work with you wherever you go - important for graduates

The OneNote team continues to listen to educator feedback. Using that, they provide updates that enhance the experience for students and teachers.  This summer 30 updates were announced, and this school year I am most excited about a feature that should be a real lifesaver--Make it Mine (rolling out in mid to late September).

Last year our school formulated a strategic plan. One of the academic goals suggested is for students to track personal progress and data. Mia Orgeron, our Director of Student Life, suggested we use a student OneNote notebook to do the job and a few weeks ago sent an email suggesting the following sections in the notebook:
1. Grade calculator 
2. Activities, awards
3. Volunteer/service hours
4. Copy of 4-year plan with big idea or goal at the bottom

OneNote is the perfect tool for this kind of portfolio, enabling students to track and reference this important information in an easy, organized way. Our Director of Student Life said, "Bottom line is we need to help them be more intentional in identifying their passion and ultimately their vocation."  One of the new updates that will help us make this an even easier process is Publish notebook (Make it Mine) in OneNote for the web. With it, we will be able to create the notebook template for students, have it include the sections we want, and be able to share a copy with them.  

To help our students stay organized, every year I make a planner that contains calendars and other important information such as schedules and link to student handbook.  Last year, our students began using the OneNote Windows 10 app. Since I made the planner, I had to make it read-only because at that time, there wasn't a way for them to make it their own.  This school year, I will suggest that we add this planner section to the OneNote notebook portfolio. That way students will be more empowered to use it because they will be able to make it their own with the new Make it Mine feature, which will roll out some time in early fall. 

Planner example

Planner Calendar Example (adapted from a template design created by student at St. Thomas More High School)

Gamifying PD

Why? After observing the success that another teacher had with gamification, attending several conference sessions, and reading the book, Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development by Jason Bretzmann, I decided to gamify PD this year for our staff.  Holley Fontenot, an English teacher at my school, inspired me to gamify because of the success and motivation her students experienced in class.  After gamifying, she had students who wanted to edit their papers and beat a grammar quiz even though they could have moved on to another activity in order to level up.  


How?
For the first draft, I used Holley's template. She adapted it from a presentation by Jared Colley and Seth Burgess at the Lausanne Learning Institute in Memphis, TN.  I used the template to organize the activities I wanted to make available to teachers. Each activity has a corresponding number of XP (experience) to earn.  Our teachers are required to earn at least 15 hours of Tech PD each year and record it on a tech journal. This year, with gamification, they will earn XP but still use the tech journal to keep track of what they earn. Before proceeding with faculty-wide implementation, I asked two teachers to review the gamification template and make comments.  Since I use a OneNote Class Notebook with teachers, I was able to easily share my first draft and get feedback (see image below). 

For the second draft, I incorporated the suggestions but still was not satisfied with the template. It did not look fun and seemed complicated.  I came across something called PD Bingo from a blog post (http://technicallyteamann.com/no-teacher-summer-slide-fun-summer-pd-teachers/) and loved the simple form.  I decided this was the route I needed to pursue, so I started making a similar template with the activities from the second draft.  I called it PD Bingo, but it wasn't really making sense to me.  I thought about renaming it PD Building Blocks or PD Puzzle.  I wanted it to have a positive title where one is motivated to complete the "game" after reading it.  I began thinking about the word "Tech" and games and finally put together TECH-TAC-TOE. Teachers can play TECH-TAC-TOE to complete levels!  Because we are a 1:1 school, new teachers to our school will be going on The Amazing Journey.  They will still play TECH-TAC-TOE but will reach levels by meeting with me to learn about a part of The Amazing Journey.  All materials needed will be in the OneNote Class Notebook for easy access.  

Click the links below to access the templates.

• TECH-TAC-TOE (Levels 1-3)
• Tech Journal 

My hope is that PD Gamification will make technology integration more meaningful for both teachers and students. Gamification allows participants to choose their own path, and it will be no different with Tech PD Gamification.  Each teacher's journey will be personalized with student needs at the forefront.  I look forward to teacher feedback to make it better, and I'm excited about rolling it out this week and letting the games begin.  

OneNote Student Avengers

What are OneNote Student Avengers? Basically, they are students who have demonstrated how to do certain tasks in OneNote in order to become trainers and mentors for teachers and students.  OneNote is the most heavily used program at our school. You can learn more about the Student Avenger program and how we started it here.  

As of today, we have 12 student avengers and they are doing great work! They each have a training journal in a OneNote class notebook that I shared with them to record the mentoring and training they are doing. The training journals will help us determine the issues students encounter most often as well as help us prepare training for the next school year.  

One Avenger's Training Journal

I know our training program for the students is going to get even better with the Avengers' help. They have such great ideas. One student had the idea to put a section in the collaboration space of the class notebook so all of us can put tips & tricks or instructions for certain fixes. I will also meet with the students periodically to update them on new features or fixes and get their feedback. 

Our administration is very supportive and tomorrow the Avengers will be able to wear their OneNote capes all day! (group picture coming soon) This was our IT Director's idea. A list of the students with email addresses will be available for teachers and students so they know who to contact for help. We are also in the process of setting up a skype with a member of the OneNote team so the Avengers and other students in the Computer Architecture class can ask questions. The @Microsoft_EDU team and @OneNoteEDU team have been amazing, and their encouragement made this all a reality. The Avenger badges they created for the students are fantastic! There's only one way to go from here. As Superman would say, "Up, up, and away!"

OneNote Class Notebook Journey

Our Journey with OneNote Class Notebook... 

     Our journey began last year when ten teachers piloted Class Notebook at our high school.  Many of our teachers, especially in the math department, had a love of OneNote already.  Class Notebook made that love stronger.  OneNote Class Notebook allows the teacher to create a OneNote Notebook and add students to it so they can have a personal workspace.  The teacher can distribute material to the students, review work, and everyone can ink.  Over the summer, I facilitated an online "Summer Tech Challenge" in which teachers were invited to strengthen their Class Notebook skills or begin the journey with class notebook.  Twenty teachers accepted the challenge.  At this point in the school year, we have twenty teachers using Class Notebook plus our principal. Another teacher is interested in joining the journey during the second quarter. These teachers are in the science, math, foreign language, english, social studies, and theology departments.  OneNote Class Notebook is for ALL.

Along the way, we have learned the following:

• Creating a Teacher Notebook for each course you teach is extremely beneficial.  This helps the teacher get organized and makes distributing material to the class notebook super easy.
• The Class Notebook Add-in is essential.  This extra tab in OneNote makes makes distributing and reviewing work quick and easy.
• A teacher can distribute a section group to students and then distribute chapters to that section group.  

 

(section group)

 

(tabs within section Chapter 1 section group)

• When training students on the class notebook, we are making it a priority to train them to NOT rename pages teachers distribute nor put "extra" material in a section distributed by the teacher. This helps when reviewing work.  We tell them "if it's not in the right place, it won't be seen by the teacher" because the teacher is not likely to hunt for the work.
• Sending feedback is so worth it.  The OneNote people are incredible and so fast in their replies. I skyped with someone today who is helping us figure out something.  Thank you, OneNote! May your purple cape always fly!