Class Notes and Workflow (On The Other Side of the Wall)

I’ve struggled in the past with the role of class notes. I wrote more than a year ago about my solution using Microsoft OneNote. Since moving out of China, I’ve realized just how far behind I am in just awareness of what Google Docs are capable of doing. My new school uses them extensively for all sorts of organizational and administrative purposes, not to mention applications in the classroom. I decided to upgrade my class notebook system this year to make better use of these tools. Now that we’re approaching three months in, I’m feeling pretty happy about my system thus far.

I now make all my handouts on Google Docs. The bandwidth and lack of a Great Firewall make it a reliable way to have access to files both at school and at home, which means that I’m not dragging my computer back and forth anymore. There’s something to be said for carrying a minimalist backpack, especially given the temperatures here. I relied on iCloud Drive last year which worked well enough, but the fact that I’m not worrying about files syncing between home and school is a clear change for the better. These files are titled U3D02 – CW – Title of Day’s Lesson to signify ‘Unit 3, Day 2’ for ease of identifying files and their order. These are starting points for class activities, resources to use during class such as Desmos activities, videos, or other parts of what might be useful to students learning a given topic.

Each handout is shared with the class through Hapara teacher dashboard and Google Drive, and I give students read access on each file. Two students are randomly picked to be responsible for class notes. These two students make a copy of this handout during class, name it with the same title and unit/day designation, and then change CW (class work) to NB (notebook) file to indicate the purpose of this file.

I take notes during class using Notability and my Wacom tablet. It’s easy to copy and paste images from the digital handout into the notes, and then annotate them as needed. I take photos of student work with my phone and use Airdrop to get them to my classroom laptop. At the end of the class, I paste images of the notes I take during class into the relevant part of the notes. The two students are responsible for solving problems from the class handout and from homework, taking pictures, and putting them into the notes file on Google Docs. Links to these files are then shared on the course website with the rest of the class.

My class handouts are still printed on A5 paper as an analog backup, and quizzes are usually still on paper as well. I still insist on students doing problems by hand since that’s ultimately how they will be assessed. The computer is there for access to Desmos, Geogebra, and the digital handout.

The most satisfying part of all of this is that students are being remarkably proactive about asking for materials to be shared, letting me know when they think something should be added to a handout, or adding it themselves when they have editing access to the file. There is also a flow of suggestions and comments to the students that are responsible for each day’s lesson.

It’s pretty amazing what is possible when a major world power isn’t disrupting the technology you want to use in the classroom (or for whatever) on a regular basis.