Using OneNote as a corner-stone for content delivery
Considerations Before Deploying OneNote
OneNote was introduced in 2017 as an alternative to hosting content on our Learning Management System that was able to make more effective use of other tech within our college. It took off like wild-fire leaving our incredibly expensive, and until that time, well utilised LMS, looking like a ghost town. The reason OneNote was able to get legs so quickly was due to a number of factors, including:
OneNote Management Difficulties
Encouraging widespread OneNote across the school was not difficult – it sells itself when you have stylus enabled devices. However, without a central system for managing and distributing OneNotes, there comes challenges of ownership with staff leaving part way through a course and new staff taking over. Transferring ownership of the class OneNotes is not always simple. Also, corruptions seemed to occur more frequently when OneNotes reached a particular number of users (~ 60 in team-taught classes) or a particular file size. Also, many of the course OneNotes were very large by the time PowerPoints, and various document resources were added in to the note. As there were often audio/video files embedded within the OneNote, coupled with staff not recognising the perils of just ‘distributing’ large amounts of content (making 60 copies of said audio and video files), some OneNotes grew to around 10 GB in size. It was no wonder corruptions were prevalent and often difficult to solve permanently. Also, staff and student management of enrolments within OneNote is far from ideal. It is much better if such things can be taken care of externally.
The primary attraction to Teams from an administration perspective was as a solution to sorting out the hassle of enrolments and the online storage location of OneNotes within staff and students’ OneDrives. We had to move them from teacher’s OneDrives in order for them to be secure and to retain ownership of the curriculum materials being developed. It is not effective to lose all relevant course materials simply because a staff member leaves the school and doesn’t spend the time transferring their OneNotes from their OneDrive location. Central management is an absolute requirement when so many hours can be invested in the creation of such resources.
Teams As a Solution
Each ‘Team’ within MS Teams for Education comes with its own Class OneNote. It is built in and easy to access. As Teams offers a ‘School Data Sync’ option to upload enrolment course data for both staff and students, Teams creation and enrolment and hence, OneNote creation and enrolment, is now taken out of staff and students hands (at least initially – more later). With a bundle of CSVs, classes (or Teams) are set up well before the staff or students begin the school year or semester. There are important considerations when setting this up and Teams brings with it its own challenges. It is a complete Organisational Communications System. We don’t want staff and students having to look through multiple places in search of information about the running of the school. To move to Teams, also means to leave most of the functionality of Outlook behind as well. No more internal email within the school – that’s a significant mind shift and one that a very good case needs to be built for before it can be undertaken.
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Building a case for the transition from internal email to a project-based communication model (Teams) and ensuring everyone understands and is on board…