Why Use Digital Interactive Notebooks? 21st Century Learning

What is the next frontier in education? What will we see next?

That is what I thought of during the summer of 2015. In 2012, I went to a workshop on Google Drive. I loved it. The burning question for the next two years would be, “How was I going to use it in my classroom?” I had no idea. I slowly started with some really great student centered Apps. Then, student surveys. As a teacher author, I used google drive to store files, share forms, and collaboration.

The student shown above is using her digital interactive notebook as a reference for completing her essay organizer.

During the summer, I purchased 60 composition books for the purpose of starting interactive notebooks in all five of my English language arts classes. They sat in the classroom in their storage bins for all of September before I decided, “We are not going to use that them. The notebooks are going back to Staples!”

Why would we want to use digital interactive notebooks?

Our students today want to use technology. they want opportunities to get online. Students want to input their answers. Even your most reluctant writers will love being engaged in Google Drive educational materials.

More schools become one-to-one or even paperless educators will need to look for different ways to engage students using technology. School districts are purchasing truck loads of chrome books due its cost-effectiveness. The United States is moving toward web-based state standardized testing. Therefore, school districts are forced to implement and have accesses to technology. This resulted in the rise of classrooms with Chromebook carts and devices for each student.

Top ten reasons to use digital interactive notebooks

Paperless. No printing. No cutting. No glue.
Students work directly in the file.
Preserve ideas and references
Improve students writing.
Infuse technology.
High engagement (you’ll see renewed interest).
College readiness.
Access anywhere.
Looks like a traditional paper and pencil notebook.
If you love how traditional interactive notebooks look (I do).
Happy students.

Reading and Writing Digital Interactive Notebook

KWL digital interactive notebook “page” shown here on an iPad.

The Google Drive apps are a free download.

Go Interactive Reading and Writing Digital Interactive Notebook

I love this one! The tree was hand colored and scanned. Then I “glued” (well, digitally inserted) to give it an appearance that it’s in a lined notebook. This vocabulary organizer is great for root words.

Google Drive Toolkit

Are you ready to get started? Want to learn how to “go digital,” in your own instruction? I created
a visual tutorial that will give you step-by-step how to do it.