Digital Notebooks
Table of Contents
Why use digital notebooks?
Everything is organized in one location! Students demonstrate their learning in a one stop shop location and you can give feedback in the same place.
You create the template for students so that the content is organized, readable and professional looking. It focusses students on the learning and not the design of the slide.
Students can have a separate notebook for the time period/unit or topic
Design matters!
Be consistent. Consistent doesn't mean each slide must be the same, but colors, layout, and language should be consistent.
Avoid distracting images and flashy text - consider students who struggle with reading or may have language barriers. Simple, concise, but explicit instructions. If you must give multiple instructions or multiple steps, consider creating a separate slide for each.
If you use icons for visual signposts, use consistent ones.
A light background and dark text (sans serif font -minimum size -24) are recommended for digital information - consider students with visual impairments.
Limit your text on a page (ok to say "Go to the next page")
Creating Digital Notebooks with Google Slides
Creating digital notebooks
This video walks you through "getting started" steps for creating digital notebooks.
Sharing your notebook with your students
Sharing with students
Two ways to share your notebooks with students:
Send via Google Classroom and select "make a copy for each student"
Use this URL hack (see video) to share the Slideshow/Notebook as a template
Digital notebooks in ELA
Megan Moriano from Readwriteteachela.com shares her examples of how she uses digital notebooks. While her templates are not free, she provides excellent examples and gives step by step directions for creating your own.
Here you will find examples of her notebooks for:
Digital Journal
Dystopian literature notebook
Debate unit
Graphic novel unit
Poetry notebook
Research unit
End of Unit Assessments
Sample Notebooks
This is a good sample of a Digital Journal to write down your thoughts or to keep track of your notes and goals.
You'll find links on each tab (it comes with 4) and on the bookmarks (4 below and 1 on top) for easy navigation. To edit the text on the Tabs, click on Edit > Find and Replace. Find: Title A, Replace with: Your Title
Colors are set using theme colors, so if you wish to change them, click on Slide > Edit Master, click on Colors and change its accents.
You can use it on Google Slides or you can save it as PDF and use it with apps such as Notability on your iPad.
Honors Bio
Shelbe Flynn
This is a digital notebook from Earth Science for the entire Plate Tectonics unit. We covered one slide or “I can statement" each day or so, and at the end of class students were supposed to fill out the notebook with their learning from that day.
Free Templates
Feel free to share a template that you use or contact me to help with the design of your Digital Notebook!
Free notebook template and good tips for organizing your notebook.
Free notebook template from Slides Carnival - a fabulous site for free Google Slides templates
Free digital notebooks from Slidesmania - an awesome resources for templates for notebooks, youtube channels, digital passports and more.