This page is intended as a resource for teachers who are interested in going paperless in their classroom and using digital notebooks. Check out these posts to get some ideas for your own classroom, and then please join in the conversation- we need more trailblazer educators to re-invent education in our digital world!
Why go digital?
How to set up digital notebooks?
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Setting up digital science notebooks
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Digital Notebooks Tutorial #1: GoogleDoc basics
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Digital Notebook Tutorial #2: Setting up a digital notebook
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Digital Notebook Tutorial #3: Student steps
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Google Classroom is here!
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Open Source Digital Notebooks
How do digital notebooks affect teaching and learning?
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How to Create Learning Logs Using Google Apps
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Reflections on a paperless year: Organization
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Reflections on a paperless year: Technology Rules
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Reflections on a paperless year: Collaborative Learning
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Learning Logs to inspire and guide student growth
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Hi Nick,
My name is Jeff Bishop and I teach 8th grade Physical Science, 8th grade Robotics, as well as a new iSTEM course for 8th grade starting in September. The iSTEM can be thought of as the usual 8th grade science course but on steroids – with all of the normal topics but including engineering design challenges and all that goes along with the proposed NGSS guidelines in the future. Needless to say, my plate is full.
First off, I have been following your blog since last September when I was asked (told!) that I would be the lead for the new district initiative into STEM education. I was attracted to your wonderful blog because I, too, wanted to investigate the possibilities of going paperless in my new iSTEM classroom. I have learned so much from all of your information, successes, and setbacks and will tell you with all sincerity, that I WILL be going paperless starting September 9. I have also decided to go that route not only for iSTEM, but for my regular sections of science as well. I cannot thank you enough for your expertise, suggestions, and links to help in this area.
And now for the BUT…..
But, I had a meeting with the district supervisor for Curriculum and Instruction yesterday to get a lesson on general use of Google docs in the classroom. Let me start off by saying that I am older (59) and have been teaching for 9 years. My comfort level with technology is maybe a 5 out of 10. So my learning curve with new ideas is long and slow. I am so thankful for you supplying the Google Sites template for the digital notebook and I did spend a good amount of time modifying it to fit my classroom needs. I made a template for my students in both iSTEM and regular science and felt ready in use them in September. My supervisor posed a scenario that I had difficulty answering:
I am asking students to make 4 files – Class Stuff, Lab Stuff, Homework Stuff, and Design Challenges. I then ask them to place those files in the corresponding section of the template. He said what if a student says “Mr. Bishop, why do you want me to make the files on my drive and then place them again in the template – seems redundant.”
How do I respond to that? I feel that the template is a great way for the digital notebook to look like a real notebook and also a great way for students to organize their files, rather than just a file on their drive. But the redundancy does seem like an issue. Is there something else I am missing? We also do not have Hepara but I am going to look into Doctopus and try to figure it out before September.
Thank you so much for your blog again. I will continue to follow it and share some of what is happening on my end as well. If there is anything you need from me, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Jeff Bishop
Grover Cleveland Middle School
Caldwell, NJ
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your comment- and I look forward to hearing more about what you do as you start going paperless!
Without using Hapara or Doctopus, which can create documents for students automatically in the folders you want, there is an annoying extra step. Without using sharing software students will have to go through a few steps actually- you’ll share the document with them, they’ll need to make their own copy, re-name it, and then move it to the correct folder. This is why using something to handle the sharing is so key- which is what I would bring up with your supervisor to advocate for looking into paying for Hapara. Otherwise using digital documents widely is a little cumbersome, for teachers and students! It’s not a complete deal-breaker in my opinion, but it definitely isn’t ideal.
I have not used Doctopus myself, but from my understanding it is capable of handling the sharing of documents well- but it will probably take some time to figure out. Another option to consider is Google Classroom, if your school has it enabled- it’s also free and handles sharing documents well. Classroom would not work as well with a digital notebook though, since it only creates shared documents through it’s own interface- so the notebook would be redundant.
I’m interested what you end up doing, and how it goes. Keep in touch!
Nick
Nick, I am very excited to find your site and I have started my digital notebook to share with my 4th & 5th grade students. I am having some trouble on how to change the stickers, any words of wisdom on how to do that?
Hi Nick!
All of this is so great, you are so darn talented and I’m excited I get to take advantage of the 😉
I am trying to use your template to set up a digital notebook for my high school Sociology class. A bit different than science. I will be able to use the template for the most part; I will change the stickers. I, however, don’t know how to change the Class Stuff, Lab Stuff, Homework Stuff tabs at the top. I want them to say different things. How do I do that?
Thanks again for your help!
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Hey Nick! Shared this with some of our teachers in Phnom Penh today, thanks for taking the time to put it together.
Thank you so much for creating such an easy to follow tutorial. I’m being moved to 6th grade science next year. I’ve used “paper” interactive notebooks for about 7 years and it’s time to make the move to digital since I’ll be creating everything new anyways.
I’ve copied the template and most of the other documents you have shared, is it ok to modify and reuse those documents as well? ( like study guides and notes you’ve posted)
Thank you again!
Hi there,I check your blogs named “Digital Notebooks | The Scientific Teacher” regularly.Your humoristic style is awesome, keep it up! And you can look our website about proxy free list.
Hi. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I can’t wait to get started. Do you have your new updated digital notebook template?
Thank you so much for this! I am a Spanish Teacher. But I watched your blogs and I benefited enormously from your amazing stuff. Thanks so much! Do you do any one to one? Let me know. I will give you credit on my site. I was looking for a notebook online and your option is the best for me so far.
I cannot get my site to share with my students. I love the notebook and have it all set up. Do you have any suggestions?
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