How to use OneNote for creating and sharing study guides

Why use OneNote for studying?

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Already a widely used and beloved note-taking tool, One Note has a lot of things going for it when it comes to creating digital study guides. For one thing, it’s free with your M365 subscription, and has a bit more fluid functionality that a plain old Word document. With digital notes, you won’t have to worry about losing your precious physical notebook, or spilling coffee on it during a late-night study session and having weeks’ worth of diligently copied material disappear in seconds. Finally, you can password-protect any OneNote file or notebook to make sure that just you or your study partners are the only ones with access to that hard-won collection of knowledge. Here’s some other reasons to consider creating your study guide with the help of OneNote.

• Think of OneNote like a digital version of handwritten notes. Highlight and scribble just like you would in a paper notebook with its sketchbook and handwriting capabilities, so consider using OneNote as your note-taking tool in class for easy reference or sharing later. Feel free to add rule or notebook lines to make the experience feel more authentic. You can even take pictures of what your teacher or professor wrote on the whiteboard to include in your OneNote notebook—try doing that with a paper copy!
• You can easily share it for collaboration. OneNote is stored in the cloud, and it’s easy to provide or limit access to other people. You can also access it across multiple devices, so wherever you want to take a quick peek at your materials, they’ll be at your fingertips. You can create to-do lists that are accessible for the entire group, so everyone knows what their study responsibilities will be for that week or quarter. And you can even have separate tabs or notebooks for each study group for people to personalize their study materials or take additional notes away from the main documents.
• It’s customizable. OneNote is a blank canvas for creating the structure and tables that will work for you or whatever subject matter you’re studying. While OneNote has a built-in organizational structure that many people benefit from following, you know what works for your brain best. You also can figure out what will work overall for your study group by asking for their favorite strategies and organizational tactics—maybe even make a list of those preferences within the study guide itself. Together, you’ll be able to create an effective resource that works for everyone’s needs.
• OneNote is easy to organize. You’re free to experiment with various ways of arranging your notes, whether alphabetically, in sequential order for week by week of material, or creating tabs for subject matter or types of content, such as class notes or sample problems. And remember that you can always experiment with color-coding your folders or notebooks to make them easier to find.
• Have fun including multiple mediums and resources. Enjoy linking to other documents and resources within the body of your notebook for extra information or background, including videos, PDFs of textbook pages, course websites, relevant charts, and audio recordings. Whether you’re keeping these notes for personal use or to share with your fellow students, you can use OneNote to capture and annotate webpages and lecture presentations for reference within your notes themselves.
• OneNote has cool tools embedded in the program. Check out immersive reader to hear your notes out loud, so you can study while you do dishes or get in some time on the treadmill, rather than trying to balance a physical book and notebook while you multitask. There’s also a SmartLookup tool to easily refresh your memory on definitions of terms you might not have encountered before or perhaps forgotten.

While creating a digital study guide can be time-consuming, OneNote can help you assemble a timeless educational resource for yourself and others. Hopefully these tips and the study materials you create put you on the path to educational success.