OneNote Review

Microsoft One Note - Tardy to the Party?

For the last assignment for Technology in Music Education at Kent State University, I have been asked to provide a brief review of Microsoft's OneNote. The videos and interactive tutorials on Microsoft's website are impressive and exciting. Students collaborating, an integrated workspace for assignments, classwork, learning tools, even collecting and returning homework assignments. It looks truly dazzling. I happily downloaded the app for my iPad and started exploring.

As a digital notebook, OneNote is serviceable. Typing is quick and easy and drawing, even with just a finger - not a stylus, was accurate and smooth. Adding links, photos, videos, audio is easy and seamless. The download was rather large however and I've had a couple of instances of glitchy performance - the keyboard appeared half off screen making me restart the app to get rid of it - and other bizarre performance issues that I chalked up to Microsoft's continuing feud with Apple. Without students signed into the system though, I couldn't imagine how I would use it in my classroom as I already have other programs that I happily use to fulfill the digital notebook role, and as a Google Classroom school, I don't see my IT department hopping on board with OneNote (no matter how enamored with Microsoft they may be.) Like the sadly underutilized Google+, collaborative software is only as powerful as the number of people willing to use it, and while Google couldn't conquer facebook for social networking, I don't see Microsoft toppling Google Docs domination in the collaborative workflow department.

For now, I imagine I'll stick with Google Classroom which allows me much of the classroom management and student collaboration aspects of OneNote, and penultimate for my digital notebook needs. While OneNote certainly looks slick, I can't see convincing everyone around me to make the switch - which is what would need to happen to truly use the program to its greatest effect.