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Microsoft Office OneNote

If you're like me, you hate to use paper and try to conserve by using as little of it as possible. I've been using that great PDD notebook that Robin Racoma illustrated, but now I'm running out of room...if you're in the same situation, this is a great time to try out a digital notebook program. In an attempt to improve efficiency and effectiveness I've been playing around with the Microsoft Office OneNote program. I use it to take notes for meetings, phone calls, or simply do research. Some of you may have even seen the icon under the Office folder, but never had time to explore it. I've been using it since I got my new computer because it was already installed.

One may say, "I use Word to do all my note taking." OneNote allows you to do more than just write text. In addition to allowing plain text, it also allows you to add graphics and images where and however you want. It gives you a free form canvas (just like my trusty PDD notebook), to add these things. It also allows you to organize and file all your notes. It also automatically saves everything in it just like when you close your paper notebook. I'll leave it up to you to explore. Click here for a demo. If you like it, you can download a 60 day free trial too. Or you can take it for a spin to see how it works Click here for a test drive.

Since most of us are very task oriented, one thing I really like is that it can integrate tasks to Outlook. Say you're taking notes and something gets tasked for you to do and you'd like to make sure that you task yourself. You can simply click on the red flag to task an item and it automatically goes to your task list. Depending on how big of a task you may have, it will also link your task to your digital notebook, so it's not just a task, but a task with context. Also when we receiving agendas for meetings, OneNote allows you to save the document into the digital notebook by going to the print command to "send to OneNote".

I wanted to highlight some of the things that I enjoyed about this program. I hope you take the time to explore what it has to offer. It was really easy for me to start using because it's very user friendly. Good luck! Tell me what you think.

Microsoft Office OneNote




Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Komarey, Good choice. I actually stumbled upon this by accident the other week when I was looking for an agenda template on the Office web site for our CBOCE meeting in mid-Dec. I liked the template I saw but opted not to use it because I thought that it might be too unfamiliar & I wasn't sure if everyone in our group had it on their computer or not. I didn't expore it as indepth as you did, until now. I like the functionality of it & really can see lots of application for collaboration with my `Ike Hi students, only problem would be that they might not all have it. I really like the way that it organizes into tabs but allows you to have a space for unclassified notes too. Very practical when teaching about organization and time management. I was even thinking that it would be a neat way to organize documents in one place for easy download as the A`o Makua courses explore mobile learning. But, again, all of our learners would need access to the program. I also took a look at the Live Session feature which allows several users to edit a shared notebook at the same time. Anyway, lots of possibilities & a pretty cool tool overall. :)
Christy said…
Yes, great choice for discussion about efficiency and effectiveness. I also use my pretty notebook for scribbling things down but could see how I could keep a personal notebook for various thoughts and reminders. It's always good to look at new and improved ways to do something that we always do - take meeting notes :). I really like the integration between Outlook, linking directly to meeting notes from an appointment and adding tasks. I went through some of the exercises in the Test Drive and found that it was a quick way to get some hands-on experience.
I think it will definitely be something we should look into further as we move to SharePoint. Right now all of us don't have the program (does everyone with new computers have it?). Mahalo for sharing.
Clinton said…
Mahalo for sharing this application. I too do not have OneNote on my computer, but got to try it out using Test drive. When going through the application I was looking for other features that would be useful to a notetaker like OCR and writing with a pen for the times you don't have your computer. I see in the "Tools" menu there is a function called "Convert Handwriting to Text", though it didn't do anything when I selected it. Since these are all MS products you would think they all should integrate nicely together and if they do it may just make our lives a little easier. Thanks for sharing.
Dorothy said…
Mahalo Komarey for sharing MS One Note with us. I have a new computer, but they didn't install One Note for me, so I'm a little bummed. :(

I did, however, try the test drive version and viewed the demo. Similar to Christy's thoughts, I particularly like the fact that you can create MS Outlook tasks easily since we use that all the time. I also think there's a lot of potential to integrate this when we have MS SharePoint available to our branch in the future. I'm not sure how much the license for One Note is or if it is part of MS Office suite, so lots of next steps to consider and explore in the future. :)
Kelly D. said…
Hi Komarey,
I like it! I remember you telling me that you've been using it to track what you do each day, but I never got a chance to try it so this was perfect. I've seen the icon on my computer, but wasn't sure what the functionalitites were. I NEVER use pen and paper anymore so I do have a bunch of word documents with little notes saved in a folder called "Notes" which doesn't help when I'm trying to find a specific one. I also like the integration with Outlook and sending tasks directly from your notes. I'd like to go back and read more about the Shared Notes. I'm wondering with our many sub-group if that feature could help me keep things organized and also be able to keep everyone updated with the latest information since not everyone is in every sub-group. Thanks again - I'm looking forward to exploring it more.
Kelly

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