The idea is about moving from a conventional, mainly passive, standalone studying method into an active, cooperative one by means of online note-taking with the optional participation of students, teachers, school authorities/employees and student parents..
An example follows of how OnlineNotes could be used in a school environment.
The OnlineNotes Company offers a dedicated, customized OnlineNotes installation to a given school. The system can be installed on any Internet server, so the school does not need any IT infrastructure in order to use it. Only students, their parents, teachers and employees of that school can register as users with "write" privileges). The system would carry customized database sections corresponding to the relevant study matters and areas of interests of that school.
The school director informs teachers and students of the free availability of the dedicated OnlineNotes system and invite them to use it in all possible ways. He/she explains that using OnlineNotes is not mandatory, and should be seen as a service offered by the school to people who are willing to use it for their own advantage.
Examples of use:
STUDENT INSERTING NOTES
Any student may insert and update study notes on a any particular subject matter. Notes may include concepts, quotations, summaries, "bullet slides", links to web sites and uploaded documents and images. The student will choose whether to make each note private, public or shared with particular users, including other students, teachers, parents. Public notes are indexed by Google and other search engines and therefore accessible by anybody. Thus the student becomes a publisher, which is an educational experience in itself. He/she can then send an email to the relevant teacher or any other people, notifying the insertion or update of one or more notes.
TEACHER VIEWING NOTES POSTED BY STUDENTS
The teacher may review the note(s) posted by theirs students and take various possible actions, including: correcting the notes, adding suggestions, testing the student for a possible improvement of his/her marks.
STUDENT VIEWING NOTES/DOCUMENTS INSERTED BY OTHER STUDENTS
Any students can view notes and documents related to a particular subject, posted by other students (of the same class or other classes, of the same year or any year before). This can help him/her to learn the subject and to write his/her own notes.
TEACHER PUBLISHING NOTES ON STUDY SUBJECTS AND ACTITIVIES
Any teacher can publish notes, links, documents useful to support his/her teaching activity. These notes could be public or restricted to the students of a particular class.
Teacher can also post reports about what they have done with a class, i.e. a log of all lections and events, with the relevant study material. This can be very useful to absent students and to parents who want to monitor what their children are learning at school.
PARENTS VIEWING NOTES WRITTEN BY CHILDREN AND TEACHERS
Any parent can monitor what their children are learning at school, so they can make sure their children are spending the necessary effort in learning what they have to, and maybe help them with studying if needed. Parents can also see notes published by their children as a proof that they are working properly.
SCHOOL AUTHORITIES/EMPLOYEES PUBLISHING STUDY CURRICULA, RULES AND ANY OTHER USEFUL INFO
School authorities and employees may publish school curricula studiorum, rules and any other useful info. Although this is normally done in institutional web sites which are updated on a weekly or monthly basis, OnlineNotes can be used for immediate publication of any note or document by any person, without involving any webmaster or web programmer.
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If the school already owns a web site, the OnlineNotes could be presented as an addition to it and synergies between the two sites could be found, such as reciprocal links and reciprocal advertising.
The system could be tested in one class first and then, if the experiment proves successful, be extended to the whole school.
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