In the Wakelet collection below, I share the benefits of embedding media directly into OneNote to simplify workflow and bring content to life.
Click on the image below to access the collection
About Me
I am an Additional Support Needs teacher at Lanark Grammar School. I am also an MIE Fellow for Scotland, MIE Expert, Master Trainer and MCE (Microsoft Certified Educator). I am also a Flipgrid Student Voice Ambassador and Grid Guide and a Wakelet Ambassador and Community Leader.
I was awarded MIE Expert of the Year for Scotland 2019-20 and I also won a global competition ran by Flipgrid to attend E2 Education Exchange in Sydney, Australia.
Hi, I am Shelley a Business Education Teacher in the Scottish Borders. This is my first year as an MIEExpert and a Microsoft Trainer and I am very passionate about digital technologies. Due to the nature of my subject in School I am fairly comfortable with using Microsoft software and I have
been using Microsoft Teams for about 3 years now, so the transition to remote learning for myself has been quite seamless.
My Local Authority has introduced 1:1 iPads in Secondary Level, you can follow the progress of this @inspireSBC
What am I using in my Virtual Classroom
Microsoft Teams
Class Notebook/One Note
Thinglink
PowerPoint (creating video content)
Microsoft Forms
Satchel One (Show My Homework)
Post it App
Kahoot
Loom
Microsoft Teams
This is used as a tool to communicate with learners and give praise. I have several channels:
General
Question & Answer
Whole Class Feedback
Exit Tickets
The General Channel is for Owner only posting, this makes it clearer for learners to access information without it getting lost in a long thread. This means that announcements are clear. I LOVE announcements you have the ability to personalise your header and make information stand out.
Any queries/questions are put in the Q&A channel. I also use this channel to give out praise to students to help build realtionships.
The Exit Channel is used for learners to post their POST IT note exit tickets directly to this channel from their app.
I also have a weekly Assignment Task for each class which will either be Summative (points attached to task) or Formative (rubric attached to task).
The benefit of the weekly assignment is that all information is automatically stored into a digital grade book which can then if need be exported to excel. You also have the INSIGHTS tab which allows you to analyse your data.
Class Notebook
I have set notebooks up with the Microsoft Teams Apps for each of my classes and created Sections for them so that they can keep a Digital Jotter of their work and I can monitor their progress and give feedback.
Benefits of the class notebook are immense from easily distributing pages, reviewing student work and leaving feedback. I love the versatility of being able to embed Audio, Video and Microsoft Forms directly into the one page making accessing resources easier for learners. I also love that learners can reply verbally to feedback or use the audio tool as an exit ticket. This then allows you to stay connected (its lovely to hear their voices!) but also identify any misconceptions that may need to picked up on the following week.
ThingLink
I am using this as an interactive classroom. Each of the tags can be clicked and will give learners either video, text or tasks. It allows me to also add audio to any of the content. This blog does not support the interactivity/embed in the graphic but you can click HERE to go to the online version of this example.
Do your learners create graphs in your classroom? Perhaps after they undertake a survey, such as a traffic survey, favourite food, eye colour, or something related to an area of study in the curriculum? There’s a whole range of digital tools available to help create graphs and charts (have a look at this blogpost “Fun or fear? Spreadsheets for Problem Solving in the Primary Classroom – fun over fear!” for a host of ideas and links to digital tools for using spreadsheets in the classroom).
Microsoft Excel is one of the most well-known and widely used digital tools for creating spreadsheets, which can easily be used to create graphs and charts. Microsoft Excel Online is available to all Glow users in Scottish schools as part of Microsoft Office 365. Excel Online is available anytime, anywhere with online access so can be accessed at home or at school (it can also tie neatly into the desktop version and mobile apps for smartphones and tablets, so that information created on one device in one location, is accessible for editing and updating on another device elsewhere).
Excel Online can be used to create spreadsheets from the beginning (or you can upload an existing Excel spreadsheet from your computer to make it available to edit online thereafter). You can keep it private to you in your own OneDrive (the online cloud storage with massive capacity available to every Glow user in Scottish schools). Or you can, at any time, choose to make a Excel Online spreadsheet visible to other users of your choice – and you can choose whether to allow them to just be able to read it without being able to make changes, or you can give other users the access rights to be able to jointly edit the spreadsheet with you. If your class is using Microsoft Teams then a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can be created in the shared files so that all members of the class can automatically collaborate without the need to find and add specific usernames.
Here’s how to create a table and bar chart for a class traffic survey in Microsoft Excel Online
Want to know more about using Microsoft Excel Online?
Microsoft Excel – there is a wide range of resources online using Microsoft Excel as the tool to put spreadsheets in a context suitable for use by pupils in a primary classroom. Some links have been provided below. Some of these provide tutorials in the use of Excel while others provide the ready-made files along with classroom teaching notes. Excel Online is available for free to schools using Microsoft Office 365 (all schools in Scotland using Glow can access Microsoft Excel Online as part of Office 365. It’s available in OneDrive or as part of Microsoft Teams for classes so you can either create spreadsheets individually or collectively so that multiple learners can collaborate on the same Excel Online spreadsheet at the same time on different devices from anywhere).
The Beginner’s Guide to Microsoft Excel Online – a handy guide by Matthew Guay describing with screenshot illustrations how to undertake a variety of tasks in Microsoft Excel Online, from starting a new spreadsheet file, looking at options in the menu ribbons, applying functions, adding charts and tables, using the survey tool, sharing and collaborating with others, using comments and more.
Users of Glow can access Microsoft Excel Online from within Glow by clicking on the OneDrive tile on the Glow Launchpad (from where Excel Online can be accessed from the 9-square waffle), or via Microsoft Teams Files tab (for Excel Online spreadsheets shared with the rest of the class Team) or directly from the Microsoft Excel Online login https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx entering the Glow email address – which is usually something along the lines of the form gw17surnameforename@glow.sch.org which will then take you to the usual Glow login page.
My class have been writing short descriptive passages about soldiers in the WW1 trenches.
At the weekend I planned for them to record these over a background of sound effects. I had spent some time at freesound.org and downloaded 20 or so effects and sounds. I had converted these to MP3 files, to reduce file size and placed these in a folder in OneDrive which I then shared. I have also made a list of credits for the files, all are Creative Commons.
The plan was to get the class to listen to the files in OneDrive then ‘open’ the ones they wanted to use in bossjock jr. These could then be loaded into ‘carts’ alongside the voice recordings. The pupils then played the different sounds and record that for their final mix.
To make sure everything went smoothly I got the whole class to open OneDrive and make sure they were logged in. That first step worked fine. The problem was OneDrive reported that there was not an internet connection and showed no files or folders. Since the class had logged into Glow this was obviously wrong.
I ended using most of the morning interval and lunchtime trying to see where the problem was. Strangely when I opened the iOS Files app when also allows you to see OneDrive files, I started slowly seeing files on the pupils iPads. And when I switched back to OneDrive the appeared there. To give the pupils access to the shared folder I needed to send a url. This opens OneDrive, and that told me I needed to open the browser, doing this, and signing on to Glow again (in the browser this time) eventually gave pupils iPads a view of the shared folder. Unfortunately I couldn’t get these to open and then open in bossjock in a timely fashion. It just was taking too long.
Time for a rethink.
On my iPad I had earlier made the files available off line in OneDrive. This took a while. I did manage to see the files in the Files app, from there I copied the MP3 files to the Notes app. 2 notes with about 10 files each. I quickly tested sharing these notes via Airdrop, it was pretty quick.
I suspected that airdropping notes with 10 audio attachments might be a bit slow, especially without Apple Classroom. I was wrong. In the afternoon I just dropped the notes to the pupils in groups of 4 or 5 at a time and in 10 minutes had distributed 20 audio files to all of the class. From there they could listen to the files in notes and copy the ones they liked to bossjock.
The rest of the afternoon when well, the children recorded their voices and mixed in the sound effects. For a first try the results were good. Next time I think we will record the audio live over the backgrounds that would allow us to duck the effects and make sure all of the words were clear. I think once the logistics of moving audio onto the iPads was sorted it becomes an interesting and valuable lesson. Fortunately the class missed all of the boring bits and no one asked why we had opened OneDrive earlier in the day.
lessons learned (again)
My home WiFi is faster than school.
Moving files locally is quicker than the cloud.
We can have a lot of fun with bossjock.
Notes and Airdrop are marvellous.
featured image, screenshot of sending audio from Notes to bossjock jr.
I am Shelley a Business Education Teacher in the Scottish Borders. This is my first year as an MIEExpert and a Microsoft Trainer and I am very passionate about digital technologies. Due to the nature of my subject in School I am fairly comfortable with using Microsoft software and I have
been using Microsoft Teams for about 3 years now, so the transition to remote learning for myself has been quite seamless.
Happy to share, help and/or collaborate 
