Microsoft has announced a grand total of 30 updates for OneNote and Class Notebooks that will be rolling out today and across the year. They primarily address gaps between Class Notebooks and other versions, but also bring better Teams integration.
Of the biggest additions is individual page distribution for teachers. Insiders can now give a page only to certain students, or create custom groups to distribute page variants or other changes. Further, users can now distribute multiple pages at once, or sub-pages by shift or ctrl selecting. They can also review pages that were distributed in a nested student group, or review a distributed page across multiple Class Notebook classes.
In general, these features should save teachers a ton of time. Many are available today, while others will come before the end of the month. However, other features focus on more niche features that will be equally helpful.
Math teachers can now turn off the equation solver for students if they want them to solve issues without any aids. LMS and SIS systems now automatically map notebook and student names, while LMS pages can be locked after a certain time.
Microsoft Teams Integrations
As well as improvements to the core app, Microsoft has made improvements to the compatibility between Class Notebook and Teams. Here are some of the major additions:
- “Import content in class or staff team notebooks: We’re actively working on the ability to pull in content from an old Content Library, Teacher-Only area, or old OneNote notebooks (e.g. a master curriculum notebook).
- Attach a notebook to ‘PLC’ or ‘Anyone’ team types: We have enabled the ability to use the “+” tab and add a new or existing OneNote notebook into the team. This is now supported in PLC teams and Anyone Team types and rolled out worldwide.
- TurnItIn and OneNote Integration through Microsoft Teams: OneNote pages attached to student submissions on assignments will automatically get analyzed by Turnitin. Turnitin allows educators to check student submissions for multiple forms of plagiarism and helps teach the value of academic integrity, proper attribution, and authentic writing.
- Remember your last seen page in Teams“
Outside of education, the regular OneNote app also received updates. Students can practice math quizzes, send emails from Outlook to their pages, set default page templates, and more.
You can find a full list of changes on Microsoft’s Tech Community blog.
