Arden Library Appvent Day #21 - OneNote

Submitted by elatham on Tue, 11/21/2023 - 12:50
A festive wreath with a number twenty one in the centre on a dark blue background with snowflakes and hanging baubles

It’s Day #21 of Arden Library’s Appvent Calendar and today we’re looking at the super helpful Microsoft app OneNote. All Arden University students have a free Office 365 account which includes the Microsoft (MS) Office suite of software and enables you to enjoy access to all the systems you need from your personal devices. When it comes to MS Office, you may know about applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but have you taken advantage of the digital notebook OneNote?  

OneNote is a convenient and versatile productivity tool that allows you to capture, store and organise notes and a wide range of multimedia elements. You can even use OneNote to share your work and collaborate with other students. With OneNote you can: 

  • Take photos of whiteboards, slides and documents. OneNote will trim and enhance them for easier reading and will recognise typed text so you can search for it later.  

  • Sketch or write by hand with a stylus if you prefer. 

  • Record audio that OneNote will link to your notes. 

  • Create to-do lists and tables.  

  • Share with anyone via email.  

  • Edit with others together in real time. 

  • Work from any device in any location as OneNote syncs automatically. 

  • Clip web pages from any browser and annotate them.  

  • Annotate slides, documents and photos.  

  • Create notebooks and divided sections to manage projects.  

Don’t forget that Office 365 is so much more than Outlook for your emails! If you’re looking for a more effective way to keep your notes organised and gather together documents, online sources, images, and more for your studies, assignments and research all in one place, OneNote could be the perfect solution. The search function means you can easily locate what you need rather than looking through endless pieces of paper. Because OneNote syncs automatically, you can take it with you wherever you go and pick up where you left off.  

Taking notes from your online lessons, lectures, and tutorials is a very important part of student life and while tools like OneNote can really enhance what you’re able to capture, they can’t decide for you what that should be. If you’d like to develop your skills in this area there are regular Academic Skills workshops you can book a place on: Academic Skills Workshops. You can watch an overview of what OneNote has to offer here: How to use OneNote.

Happy note taking!