OneNote — an insanely powerful learning tool.
Note-taking is one of the most critical aspects of any learning process. I’ve found this to be especially true throughout my entire coding bootcamp experience here at the Flatiron School, where I’ve noticed how the same information can be processed so differently from one student to the next.
These differences can arise from a multitude of reasons, such as students’ prior knowledge (technical or nontechnical) and the way students organize and reorganize that knowledge. In any event, the fact remains that there are nuances in each and every one of our learning styles, and the more a note-taking app can mirror the unique ways we think.. the better.
Thankfully, there’s OneNote.
OneNote is a unique note-taking tool that effectively addresses these nuances in learning styles by giving users complete freedom in the way they take, organize, and share notes. It syncs with practically every device (even Apple Watch!) and anyone can start using OneNote for free here:
Google Play:
Apple App Store:
My favorite thing about OneNote is its virtually limitless document window, which allows me to click anywhere on the canvas to create a new text box at that location. I could then add pictures I gather from the web, screenshots of diagrams from lectures, and even videos of those lectures all wherever I want to place them.
Without an enforced uniform page layout or structure, combined with a collection of shapes (circles, squares, pointed arrows, and even ‘check-able’ to-do list boxes, etc.) one’s creativity and productivity can be explored and optimized here.
You’ll notice from comparing the first and second screenshots above that we can also zoom in & out of view to freely navigate across all our notes, making any changes we want, all the while learning and creating with the peace of mind that OneNote automatically saves all of our note-taking art.
Hopefully this quick tour of OneNote has sparked some of your interest to at least try it out as a helpful tool for your next learning adventure. But please note that everything mentioned in this blog post barely scratches the surface of what possibilities OneNote provides its users, so please do continue your exploration here:
Happy ‘OneNote-ing’, all!
