Tinkering with OneNote

My Grade 4/5 writing group was playing around with OneNote in MS365 today. (The students in this group all have a learning disability in writing.) They dictated a “wondering” that they had into Google. Then found a suggested website which answered their question. Research is often introduced in these grades and yet it’s very challenging for them. The information on most websites is beyond this grade level.

So we created a section and and new page in OneNote. Then we copied and pasted chunks of text (about 3 paragraphs) from the website into their One Note page. From there, we tinkered with the text further by opening Immersive Reader (View > Immersive Reader). With this learning tool open, they could divide the words into syllables, change the colour of the background, create more space between the words, adjust the speed of the reading voice, change the line focus (blocks out other lines of text), and adjust font, font size, and line length. It was easy and they loved it! They all agreed that they could see how they might use this tool.

Tomorrow, we’ll tinker some more and extract information line-by-line to create their own paragraph within OneNote.

Immersive Reader can also be used within Word, Outlook, or Edge. It’s a great tool for LD or ELL students. If you have MS365 in your school district, it can be accessed by using your Outlook username and password. (Otherwise they’ll have to create an account.) I had my students open Microsoft Office Online so that they can access their information and work anywhere and on any computer. Best of all, it’s free!

(NOTE: This is not a paid endorsement for this product.)

Update: After writing this blog post, the fine folks at OneNote shared it and created this awesome graphic, including the custom bitmoji of yours truly. Thanks, OneNote and Microsoft EDU!