DINBs can provide structure to your remote online, hybrid, blended learning classroom. Most students are already familiar with the concept of a notebook. It's like comfort food. It gives them a little bit of a format they are used to, while taking advantage of the technology that is available.
One of the things my high school students struggle with in maintaining a traditional notebook is losing the pieces, finding the right page quickly, etc. I would give them somewhere around 60-80 pages over the course of the year and they received "participation points" for keeping it up to date and in order. This usually resulted in mass hysteria at the end of the quarter when they couldn't find their pages. Sound familiar?
With the digital notebook they will always have all of their pages available to them. They won't run out of space when taking notes. It's easier to collect and grade if needed and it cuts down on teachers physically touching hundreds of pieces of paper.
What are the downfalls of DINB's?
Students aren't able to "draw" on a slide in a way that feels authentic to them. So if you're thinking digital sketchbook, you may want to add a digital app in there and let them place drawings in from other sources.
Some students may not have access to technology. While we are a Title 1 school, I am lucky to work in a district that has provided 1:1 technology (ipads) to our students. We are currently working on providing hotspot access for those without internet in the home.
How can you get started?
The first thing you will need to do is decide if you want one notebook for the entire year/semester or if you will have several smaller notebooks for each project/unit. I started designing a year-long notebook at the beginning of the summer and the file quickly grew larger than I think will be manageable. Since everything will be housed in their google classroom, I am currently leaning toward a project-based notebook.
The second thing you will need to decide is if you want to set up your book vertically or horizontally. Because I am transitioning from a paper notebook to digital, I knew 99% of my assignment sheets, rubrics and notebook pages were already set up vertically. It's not the best format for me to view on my laptop, but they are using ipads so they just need to turn the screen and it will be great for them. This is their notebook. I can deal with a minor inconvenience.
If this is sounding good to you, but you're still not sure where to start, I would recommended looking at established templates and notebooks that are out there. I have both of my art teacher templates - the year long and the project-based available on TpT.
How long does this take?
It took about 10 hours to create the year long book. It was brand new to me, and I had to search for and week through a bunch of tutorial videos, but I did have a working knowledge of PowerPoint and Google Slides. I also wanted to make cute custom covers and have tabs that link. You don't have to do that, especially in a time crunch.
This will depend on what you already have saved. If you have a worksheet made you could take a screenshot and insert it. Based on the level of your students you will need to decide if you will be adding the text boxes, or if they will. Obviously it will take more time if you need to create worksheets from scratch AND decide that you will be putting in all of the text boxes for your students. Perhaps you do so on the first 3-5 slides, realizing that later in the year they will have the skills to do so on their own.
Still have questions? Drop them in the comments below.
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