Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been connecting with a bunch of teachers out there who are also experimenting with going paperless and starting digital notebooks. It’s exciting to see the growing number of educators who are trailblazing a new path for education in our digital world, so I started a new page for collecting my ideas on digital notebooks, and I also decided to go “open source” with my digital notebook resources this year.
For those of you who are curious what a digital notebook in action looks like, I’ve created an example notebook that will mirror my actual students notebooks and be updated throughout the year. You’ll be able to see how we digitize classwork, homework, and assessments, and also how we use the digital notebooks to track progress with learning logs. Hopefully this example notebook will inspire those of you starting up digital notebooks in your own classrooms and encourage those of you who are thinking of giving it a try. I’d love to hear from you if you have questions or your own experiences to share!
Here’s the link to check out this example notebook. We’re starting off the year with a unit on Scientific Inquiry, so that’s the only section you’ll see changes to in this first month, and then we’ll be moving on to ecology, chemistry, and geology. I’ll attempt to keep as many documents as possible viewable to all so you can get a complete sense of how the notebooks works.
For more information on how I set up this notebook, check out the tutorial videos here. This year I am using a combination of Hapara and Google Classroom to facilitate the sharing and management of digital documents. I know this is a bit redundant, but at the moment Google Classroom is really designed for assignments only (though this may change with updates), so I’m using Classroom for that and Hapara for all other types of documents. My colleague is using Google Classroom exclusively, so that is a viable alternative, he just makes sure to label documents clearly (CLASS or HOMEWORK) and sets the mandatory due dates for class documents for a year from now so they don’t annoyingly populate the “Upcoming Assignments” box.
Keep the questions coming and the discussion going! Coming soon: Digital lesson from paper: how I’m trying to translate the best of interactive science notebooks to the digital realm.
My name is Nick Mitchell, and I love the art and science of teaching.
The Scientific Teacher 
I was really happy to see this post. We are a 1:1 iPad school. I want digital notebooks to be on the iPad and I want to include many evidences of learning produced with Web 2.0 tools. (Thinglink, Haiku Deck, Glogster, etc.) I am having a hard time finding a platform that will easily include there. Google Sites is too difficult to use on an iPad. Docs is too limiting on the iPad. The best I have come up with is Livebinder app. I have requested that Goodnotes allow the embedding of Web 2.0 tools but I can’t predict if or when that will happen. I would love to know if you have included any of these projects in notebooks and how you have handled it.
Hi Alicia, I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of ideas for iPads. We use them for only specific apps in our school, but the laptops are the main tool for students. If your school’s already committed to iPads perhaps they would consider getting a set of keyboards that would make them more useful? I
It doesn’t seem that you’ve updated lately. It would be great to read more about this this went for you and what you’ve learned!
Too true Gary! It’s been a very busy year for me (new baby, new house, new job), and I haven’t found time to post. But as the year wraps up I do plan on updating how things went. Stay tuned!
Hi, I absolutely love your template. Is there anyway I can edit it for Math?/
Absolutely! That would be cool to see. It shouldn’t be that hard- you’ll just need to replace my image stickers with the different image stickers you need, and think about what kind of sections (the tabs) you want in your math digital notebook. If you make one, be sure to share- I’d love to post that on my blog!
Thanks for your reply. I will definitely share it with you when I’m done.
Hi Nick, I am super excited to use your ideas for a digital notebook in my 7th grade science class this year. I have copied your template and feel good about adjusting the stickers and pages to meet my needs, but I am just stumped as to how to remove the words”6th grade” from the home page. Can you walk me through that? Thanks.
I am interested in starting to go digital with my science notebooks next year, as my school is slated to pilot 1-1 devices. I tried to download/access your template and was denied access. Can you help me, Nick? BTW…thank you for sharing your ideas and insights publicly.
I’m having a challenging time finding the videos.
I cannot find your editable post-it notes. Can you help me with that?
When downloading the template, the black cover page disappears and is replaced with a lined page. Is there anyway to change that or is that set in?