Keeping and Collating Notes – Digital Notebooks

This page is dedicated to providing an introduction and overview of some solutions to consider and basic tutorials to get started.

First piece of advice: Have a go and play around creating a notebook!

At the moment there are two clear front runners in applications to use for collating and taking notes:

Both these applications have advantages and disadvantages – so the choice of which to use may depend on what you need to collect notes for.

  • If you only need to access the notes on one device, use mainly text, pictures, pdf files and powepoint handouts, then OneNote is probably best suited for this.  It has a very tidy way of organising your notes into clear books, sections and pages.
  • If you would like to access your notes from different devices (eg your netbook, phone, home computer…) then Evernote is the one for you, because it is “cloud based” (saved on the web).  Evernote also works very well with other applications – you can clip a web page or insert a photo from your phone into your evernote notebook with a click of a button.  It also talks to other applications such as Nozbe for task management.

Comparison

The Table below outlines some further advantages and disadvantages:

Evernote Vs OneNote

Microsoft Office OneNote

Advantages
Graphically very pleasant way of catagorising and colour coding subjects, chapters, notebooks…
Works and efficiently synchronises on all devices:
PC, Web, Mac, iPad, Android Tablets, Smart Phones, iPhone, iPod Touch…
Very Similar to Word and other office applications.        Excellent integtation with phone
cameras, scanner apps and other web 2.0 apps (eg. RSS “reeder”, Nozbe, Skitch…)
Highly modifiable texts, images and layout.
Easy to insert photo of whiteboard or image and write Great “Web Clipper” plugins for all browsers
‐ grab
notes all over it.
Easy to insert pdf file (eg powerpoint slides handout)
and write notes all over it.
Teachers can set up a whole chapter or section (like a workbook) and share through share point.
what is on a web page and save it straight into a
Notebook.
Cloud Based (backed up?!~)
Easy sharing or collaboration on Notebooks live on‐
line (does need Premium Account ($45 per year)
Disadvantages
Students can package and share/copy whole section and/or Notebook
Only recent developments allow it to run on none windows devices, but need Windows Live Account.
Not as visually “organiser friendly” as OneNote.
Need Windows cloud storage (skydrive) to share books.
Does not integrate as well with cameras, phone
scanner apps, Nozbe,….
Free Account has limited storage (though should be enough)
Not quite as easy to navigate through notes ‐ need
to plan structure or use tags and/or search functions
Does not have tag function.
Not as convenient for web clipping.

Microsoft Office OneNote

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!: Get to know how to use this application fully from the start and take the Microsoft Office OneNote Training Course.

This course is aimed at making the switch from OneNote 2007, but even if you have never used it before it is a great detailed overview of the functions.  Similarly use the Migration Reference Charts for a quick guide.

Additional training material and guides:

*Requires web based storage – eg. Dropbox, Skydrive, ASUS WebStorage, iCloud….

Evernote


Follow the Evernote step by step – “Getting Started Guide”

Additional Tutorials

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  1. Pingback: Keeping and Collating Notes – Digital Notebooks | TC 21C Educators | HH340!!!

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