Part A- Description of Need or Opportunity

An educational need that I have found in my classroom, is a alternative way for students to take notes on lectures or discussions that does not hinder them from concentrating on the lecture or discussion itself. Also a need for an alternative way to allow students to take notes on lecture material on their own and at their own pace. Many times, my lectures have to pause for students to continue taking notes. This leads me to the conclusion, that my students are not paying attention to the content itself, but only concentrating on writing down the notes during my presentation.

By using Google Notebook as an educational tool in my classroom, students will have access to an electronic notebook that they can store and record all classroom notes derived from my lectures or discussions. Each lecture or discussion along with correlating note presentation (ie. PowerPoint) would be recorded and posted daily on my classroom blog. After students participated and listened to the lecture in the classroom, for homework, they would access the lecture and notes from my blog, and take their own notes electronically using Google Notebook.



Each student and teacher in my district has a school GMail account which allows free access and storage to Google Notebook. Students would be able to take notes on the material covered in class at their own pace. This is beneficial for students of all learning capabilities, because they are given access to assistive technologies for note taking, and can work at their own pace to record the pertinent information needed. Using Google Notebook will also allow students to organize and access all their notes from my class from anywhere with Internet access. This will help students to stay organized and have all their notes in one place.

Often I have found that my lecture is slowed down due to students not being able to write notes quick enough, or a concerned about spelling or wording. I have taken a poll in my classroom, and my students feel that using Google Notebook would be a useful tool that they would use in my class. They conveyed to me that this would allow for more time to participate in discussions rather than focus on note taking.



During this course, I will implement students having access to Google Notebook by setting up their Gmail accounts if not already completed. I will also need to be sure that students will have access and knowledge on how to use Google Notebook before expecting them to use it in my class daily. During this course I will implement a Google Notebook tutorial to my class, and explore all its features.

The portion I plan to implement after this class is recording video of my daily lectures and/or presentations and linking it to my blog. Another portion I will implement after this class is incorporating Google Notebook into my students coursework next year.