Students in the late 1970s organized their homework and other school papers in their Trapper Keepers. It was a handy tool for keeping track of all f those loose-leaf note pages in the days before every kid carried a backpack.

The Trapper Keeper is making a comeback, but if education professionals like David Squires have a say, there will be no need for binders or folders to carry around. That’s because there will be no paper to carry. Rather, Squires, who says he has gone completely paperless, is an advocate of Microsoft’s OneNote and will cover the application Thursday in the ISTE-hosted webinar  “Save Time, Get Organized and Build a Collaborative Classroom with Microsoft OneNote.”

Replace paper-driven environment with a digital three-ring binder

A former middle school social studies teacher, Squires left the classroom to work in administration a few years ago. When he did, he completely cut paper out of his life. Doing so allowed for new ways of collaboration.

Tomorrow’s webinar will be a fast-paced program covering, among other things, the differences between classroom and administrative uses of OneNote. The highlight will be a new tool called Classroom Notebook Creator available only to teachers in the Office 365 suite.

“This tool provides some unique ways for teachers to interact with students that you can’t do easily with other programs,” says Squires, an instructional technology specialist in the Houston area. “It gives students the opportunity to work directly in the teacher’s notebook.”

There are three specific sections in the tool: a collaboration space where students and teachers can work freely within the environment, a content library that allows teachers to share documents or create original content for students, and the student’s private space where teachers and individual students can communicate directly with each other.

Explore the different uses of OneNote

Participate in the webinar and garner these takeaways:

• A basic overview of the OneNote features.
• An overview of the Classroom Notebook Creator tool.
• Understanding of classroom vs. administrative uses for OneNote.

Squires says there are two pieces of advice that he hopes will shine through during the webinar. First, “jump in and get messy.” Don’t be afraid to experiment with all the different features because you aren’t going to hurt anything.

Second, take advantage of all the support that is available, from Microsoft, forums and peers who are already using the application. The more you know, the more the app will work for you, and the more efficient you’ll be.

Register now for the free webinar, “Save Time, Get Organized and Build a Collaborative Classroom with Microsoft OneNote.”