In this third and final (at least for now!) tutorial about digital notebooks I explain the steps your students will need to follow to create and maintain their notebooks. You’ll need to have already created a template on Google Sites of the digital notebook, which I explained in the last tutorial. As you’ll see in this video, setting up and maintaining a digital notebook is super easy for students to do, and most of the organization is automatic. Since I teach Middle School students, this is a huge selling point!
My name is Nick Mitchell, and I love the art and science of teaching.
The Scientific Teacher 
Thanks so much for sharing all of this. I have chrome books in my classroom so this is very helpful. I love when teachers are willing to share and collaborate.
Thanks Maurleen- I am happy to share! I would love to hear more about how things go with your chrome books.
Nick,
First, thank you for sharing your experience! The videos are extremely helpful.
Second, have you worked with google classroom? I’m wondering how this and sites could/would/might work together?
Hi Buffy, Glad you find the videos useful! Thanks for bringing up Google Classroom- I didn’t even know it existed. I just watched some of the previews about it, and it seems very similar to the Hapara Teacher Dashboard. So it should work very well with a Google Sites-based digital notebook. Have you tried Google Classroom yourself? What do you think of it?
No, I didn’t request in time to beta test. They are releasing it to all teachers this fall. I’ve talked with a teacher who has beta tested and she was concerned with bugs, but that’s beta version. I’m interested in trying it with your version of a notebook. I’ll keep you updated, if it flops or rocks.
My Google Classroom account just started working, so I’m checking it out to see how it would work. I’ll try to post what I find out. Right now Classroom has some limits to it, but Google is known for rolling out lots of updates, so it will probably improve over the year.
Hi Nick, Thank you so much for posting the videos they have been a great resource to start my class this year. I have a quick question about editing the stickers. We have four themes that I would like to use as stickers but I am not sure how to change the names on your template stickers so they will appear with my four themes and link to the proper pages. Thank you kindly
Hi Stephanie,
I think the easiest way would be to delete my sticker images and insert four that match your themes. Then you can link each sticker to one of the four unit pages. Once you’ve done that, you can go into each of the unit pages and change the name and sticker image to match your theme. This way you don’t need make any new pages, you’re just editing the ones I already set up in the template.
Thanks, Nick. I am sharing your diet with teachers in our district. We just launched a new initiative that includes digital lessons and 1:1 devices.
Excellent Michelle- I hope your teachers find it interesting! What device are your students using? I believe my digital notebook method works best with laptops, for iPads/tablets there are some other approaches out there that require less typing.
My students this year have laptops. Next year they will all have Windows tablets. What approaches do you suggest for students with tablets instead of laptops?
I don’t have a lot of experience with tablets, but it should open up more possibilities for you (especially for drawing). As long as students can type easily, the type of digital science notebooks I use should work well. For handwritten notes there are other options out there- but I’ve heard people have pretty mixed success with them.
on August 21, 2014 at 12:15 pm | ReplyMichelle
Thanks, Nick. I am sharing your site with teachers in our district. We just launched a new initiative that includes digital lessons and 1:1 devices.
(Apologies for typo on last post… Auto spell check..LOL)
Dear Nick,
These are wonderful. I will be creating the content of the digital notebook ( most of my handouts are paper and I will be scanning them) as I go along. My question is once the students make their own templates. can I add to the digital notebook by just sharing google documents with my students. I want to confirm I don’t need to create all the content up front before I have the kids make their templates.
Thanks so much. I am interested in seeing how google classroom integrates with your notebooks.
Hi Sharon,
Yes, students make their own notebooks from your template, and then insert their Google Drive folders into their notebook. Then whenever you share a Google Doc with them (using Hapara, Google Classroom, or Doctopus is an easy way to do this), it will automatically appear in their notebook in that folder. So you don’t set up the content up front, you add as you go along.
One thing about handouts- if you want students to be able to type on them, you might want to consider converting them into Google Docs instead of scanning them. This will take more work obviously, but then the docs might be a lot more useful for students.
I’ll post more about Google Classroom soon! I just started using it with my students yesterday. 🙂
Dear Nick,
Thank you for your reply. I showed my students your template today and they loved it. I also showed them Google Classroom and they said yes, let’s use that. We used Hapara last year and I struggled with seeing where their work was. I look forward to seeing how you integrate Google Classroom in. I am still working on getting my icons to link. One step at a time! Thank you for your work in this area. It has been so helpful as I work towards a more digital classroom.
Hi! Thank you for sharing. I am working with your template now and modifying it to be used as a writer’s notebook. I am having an awful time swapping out the stickers for ones that go with our units. Text and images really jump around on the page. I’m also finding a bunch of blank boxes that I’m having a hard time deleting. I was wondering if the blank boxes were created as a way to keep your pieces in place and if you could please offer any other advice for formatting. Thanks!
Hi Erin,
Yes- changing things inside the tables is a little tricky! You can delete rows and columns if you want (it’s under the Table menu), but the blank cells are there to space things out. If you share your template with me I don’t mind taking a look at trying to clean it up. Re-sizing your images so they fit well in the existing table will also help.
I actually am following your steps as we speak. I love your stickers. Where did you get them from? Please do share. Also, how long does the whole process of getting a digital notebook up and running for students? I am trying to pre-plan, and want to start the school year running, and don’t want to hit major snags that will slow me down. Any ideas on a time table?
Hi Erica,
I created the stickers myself in Preview (I’m on a Mac), which makes it easy to remove backgrounds from images you can find online. Just use Google Images to find pictures you like and go from there.
Having students set up the notebooks the first time is not very time consuming at all, I just have them follow along to a video like the one above, which walks them through the steps of making their own site from the template you set up. This can be done in a single class easily.
The biggest thing for you to consider is how you will share documents with students. The easiest way by far is using something like Hapara or Doctopus, rather than having students manually copy each GoogleDoc and move it into their notebook folder (although I’ve done it that way too).
Good luck setting up your notebooks, and keep the questions coming!
Nick, first thank you for sharing! I have a question about how to simply see specific student assignments. If I use google classroom to hand out/collect assignments, do you have any tips on how students can easily transfer those assignments to their digital notebook site? Or is there a better way to see specific assignments without having to open each student’s site?
Hi Sandy, good question! If you use Google Classroom for assignments, then each student will have a Google Drive folder for your class with the assignments they open inside. So they could add this folder to their digital notebook by inserting it (it will be in a Google Drive folder called “Classroom” and then a sub-folder called whatever you named your class on Google Classroom.
That won’t be an efficient way for you to look at their assignments though- just using Classroom itself to do that is faster by far. I recommend testing it out by creating a dummy class before you start for real.
If you use Google Classroom for all your digital documents, then there is one problem: the student documents aren’t actually created until students click to open them within Google Classroom. So there’s no need for a digital notebook to organize in that case- except if you wanted to use it like a portfolio after-the-fact.
That’s why I only use Google Classroom for homework assignments. For class notes I use Hapara because this works better with a digital notebook.
Hi Nick,
I teach high school chemistry and physics and I just found your site while looking for digital notebook templates for my students. I have been looking for something to replace the paper lab notebooks. I have been using Google drive for my classes and last year, I created individual student folders within each class on my drive where students submitted formal lab reports. I then used the editing feature in Google Docs to make comments and grade their reports. This year, my school will buy Hapara, so setting up folder will be much easier.
I really like the look of your student notebooks and can envision a tab for equipment and lab techniques, lab handouts, and Data collection and reports. I’ll have to think about how exactly I would set this up.
My question is on things that you would review and grade. Where do you go to see these? Your Google Drive folder for your students? Their digital notebook?
Since, I have 120-150 students each year, I’m trying to make the grading process as easy as possible.
Thanks in advance,
Darlene
I’m rereading Sandy’s question above. I think I am asking the same question. It seems I would still review and grade students work from their assignment folder on my drive and their digital notebook would be more of a way for them to organize their materials for their own use. Is that the case?
Darlene
Hi Darlene,
Yes- you would still use drive to quickly find and access your students’ documents, but the students would use the digital notebook as a way to keep their work organized. It’s similar to a portfolio in that regard.
One thing you might want to consider for assignments is using Google Classroom. I used it last year and I think it’s the best way to manage digital assignments by far because of it’s “Turn in” feature. I blogged more about it here if you’re interested: https://scientificteacher.com/2014/08/16/google-classroom-is-here/
Nick
Awesome videos! I can’t wait to get my students digital!
jperlin
Hello. Could you point the webpage link to a subfolder already made in the google drive for each student, to minimize clean up?
Hi, quick question. Instead of making the student clean up their folders, couldn’t students go into their drive, make a folder for say, the class stuff, then make a subfolder in it for science inquiry, then insert the subfolder into the digital notebook instead of the main class stuff folder?
I have a quick question, if you have created the sites for your students and they use the template and your drive documents are added. When they make changes to the documents in google drive does it change the original document like in all other documents in google drive that you share?